For a long while Salon seemed mired in reflexive liberal-left boosterism, a sort of self-willed hysterical blindness to ideas and opinions generated outside specific zip codes.

It wasn't that I disagreed in general with Salon's politics. The problem was that, after reading a few sentences of a piece, or even a headline, I knew precisely what would follow. Salon was talking to itself. Salon was afraid of debate. Salon was decidedly behind the times.

The deal is, you see, that a large and growing number of liberal-left types like myself actually take a serious interest in what the "other side" has to say. The incredible contrast-and-compare offered by the Internet has not only nurtured our interest, but made it possible. Within seconds I can switch between "The Nation," "The Weekly Standard," "Commonweal," "First Things," "Commentary," "Mother Jones," "National Review," and the opinions voiced in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

While it's refreshing that Michael Scherer bothered to acknowledge that "conservatives" don't represent a monolithic political culture, the "rifts" he describes aren't anything new. Right-wing/conservative online media, including blogs, were screeching about these very issues at least one year ago.

I respect Salon and hope it has a great future. But being "cutting edge," or even being simply relevant, means paying attention to ideas and opinions that are unfamiliar or distasteful to you, and having the will to engage those ideas and opinions.

Unless, of course, you're insecure about your own ideas and opinions, or you're undereducated about the philosophy and political science that form the basis of your own ideas and opinions.

In that case, all bets are off.

I've been reading this article for three years now. I may be going out on a limb here, but I don't think Bush has a chance in 2008.

I'm disappointed once again as the basic strategy for changing the Congress in 2006 is the Republican Party imploding, and Democrats picking up the pieces. How many times does this have to fail before we get it. The same polls that say 70% of the people disapprove of the job done in Congress, also show that incumbents have in general over 60% approval ratings.

The incumbents always have the advantage if you have no platform. The Republican Party could be in a millions different splinters, if no strong alternative is presented, they will still control the Congress, no matter how inept, corrupt or senile the incumbent may be.

Can we stop waiting for the rift and take action? Please?

Although I have liberal tendencies, I am at heart a conservativeor more precisely a libertarian. Bush is not a conservative, and definitely not a libertarian. He is essentially the tool of Big Oil. To a lesser extent he is also the tool of the Pharmaceutical Industry, and other assorted special interests. If we accept the responsiblity of government for the Katrina victims (a libertarian would say volunteers), then instead of setting up a huge government run program to help them, we would have given them money to do what they felt was best. Probably 80% would have spent it fairly wisely, and 20% would have spent it foolishly. What else is new? Conservatives and libertarians accept the fact that you will always have fools, and controlling behavior with government is at best a waste of time and at worst counter-productive. BTW, I used the term volunteers to remind us of the fact that all these "victims" were voters who kept incompetent local politicians in office. At the very least conservatives should tell the truth, at least better than liberals. Bush lies continuously. Since most of our military and diplomatic efforts are devoted to assuring Big Oil of continuous access to oil, it would be proper to have a national debate on how we pay for those efforts. Neither liberals nor conservatives are eager for such a discussion. The conservatives because oil imports (and profits) would go down if imported oil had to pay its true costs, and liberals because the auto worker unions would be offended by the loss of jobs making trucks and SUV's. Bush is pushing HSA's, not because they are a good idea, but because unions have huge slush funds available from their operation of many health insurance plans. Those slush funds make plenty of cash available for Democrats. But they are a good idea because now that I am 72, it is obvious that most peoples health problems are self-inflicted, and those of us who try to live healthy lives should not subsidize those who don't through pseudo-insurance. Subsidies should always be obvious and up-front. But of course both liberals and Bush pseudo-conservatives like to hide their interference in the economy. Any true conservative knows that Bush's NSA surveillance activities are for the purpose of digging up dirt on politicians and their supporters and using the dirt to control them. So what is a poor libertarian to do? Why, grit their teeth and vote Republican anyway. The Democrats need a few more years in the desert to reassess what they are for. If they learn to conscentrate on the interests of the middle class they may win elections someday. In the meantime as bad as Bush is, the Republicans still have a better understanding of that.

I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Scherer's article, and it really got me thinking about how involved and effective fringe elements are ever going to be. I did not put much thought into it back in 2000, because I could not even remotely conceive that George Bush would win the election (well. . .). Now that we know what we know, does the values crowd believe themselves to be integral to the policies that are being formulated? Because they have nowhere else to go but the Republican Party, the only way they can punish some apostate is to stay home on Election Day; they cannot back any other party, nor are they strong enough to field their own candidates. (I believe the last Conservative Party victor of note was Senator James Buckley of New York in 1970). Their resentment boils over yet again because they don't realize that, sure they add spice, but they are not the whole enchilada. Bush is speaking to the ages now, and the churchy concerns of their adored heartland will no longer fill the presidential agenda.

They can gripe and complain, issue dark threats, and grumble about their causes left unaddressed, but the fact remains that Bush threw in enough guns and abortion speeches to get elected. We all know, however, that there is no room for Jesus in the boardroom. We see now that the administration came in seeking to strengthen the financial worth of those it deemed worthy of membership. The cronyism and sleaziness on display now is emblematic of that. The team around the Bushes co-opted these grassroots organizations, but, good grief, they are certainly not going to consort with them! Remember when Marilyn Quayle said during a speech, "They're laughing at you."? Back then she was referring to eastern liberals, but now even she would have to admit that it his her own branch of country club Republicans who are snickering at this crowd.