Is this informative in any way? Don't primaries and elections and etc. get more expensive every year? You, know, inflation and new technology and all that. Why should anyone care about this?

But during Clinton's breakout session with bloggers Saturday, she was not asked a single question about her vote to authorize the Iraq war or her plans for withdrawing troops. The questions, instead, had all the noncombative flair of an upstate New Hampshire town hall meeting

No matter how much Michael Scherer and other automatons insist otherwise, the herd found at mega-blogs like DKos are not "the liberal blogosphere." Rather, they are Democratic Party operatives, plain & simple - robots whose collective identity is rooted in a troubling denial of the role the Democratic Party has played - and continues to play *daily* - in the systematic dismantling of The Constitution.

Like the Beltway media establishment they routinely criticize as a bunch of toothless sycophants cozying up to power, the "Kossacks" are themselves jokes who just want to be players regardless of the game. Fuck 'em all. Raw. Along with the rest of the Democratic Blogosphere which can always find a way to balance their indignation over any betrayal - whether war crimes, torture, blatantly illegal surveillance or Nancy Pelosi's *tireless* complicity in the crimes of George W. Bush - with weak-kneed rationalizations and even more party loyalty.

If anyone wonders why the Democratic Party is itself completely devoid of anything resembling principle, look no further than the fuckwits at DailyKOS and the rest of the Democratic blogosphere. The same people who talk about a Progressive Movement which doesn't even exist. A bunch of like-minded parrots talking to each other can't be equated with a movement. (Clue: Movements actually move.)

This as good a time as any to show the Dem Faithful some gratitude for their invaluable assistance in perpetuating the theatrical, well-oiled bullshit that passes for political representation. Thanks a million for the status quo, you Stockholm syndrome-afflicted, candy-ass motherfuckers. Although you'll never be players you aspire to be, for cheap violins, you hold up exceedingly well.

It's maybe cause we're going to at least keep some bases in Kurdistan lest the Kurds get massacred (again) when we leave Iraq. Look, I hate the Iraq war as much as anyone. But we need to recognize some stuff: It would be terrible to let the Turks, or Iranians, or Iraqi Shiites to go ahead and kill a largely innocent ethnic minority. There's some stuff we own, and just can't abandon. And we will need to use our military in Middle East again, and it probably won't be too long. All of us wishing for peace won't change that. Might as well keep some people based where they are wanted.

The questions, instead, had all the noncombative flair of an upstate New Hampshire town hall meeting. What would she do about education reform? What did she think about welfare reform and gays in the military? How would her attorney general be different from Gonzales?

My take on this snippet is the opposite of the commenter above. It seems a very strange thing to criticize -- questions about education, welfare, protection of the Constitution, gays, and the military -- instead of obsessing over 'flashpoints.'

Have we become so inured to the sound-bite, anything-for-a-hot-conflict, the-more-outrageous-the-better style of both politics and reporting media that a discussion of actual important issues has become a suspect activity?

How very alarming.

Yes and no to your post. I think there's no bigger issue than how to deal with Iraq. None. But I'm glad that Senator Clinton wasn't getting skewered for her war vote and it's helpful to know her thoughts on other things.

I can't believe, after eight years of King George, there are still some people saying "there is no difference between the two parties". Last time I checked, Clinton didn't suspend habeus corpus! When people first started screaming for this in 1999-2000, it was because we on the left had gotten a little too arrogant in our control over Washington. Eight years of prosperity under a democratic president, a naked persute of that president by republicans for nothing more then sex that ended up hurting them instead, it was easy to think we were in a position to demand a little bit more. We didn't know then how bad things could still get in this day and age.

We don't have that excuse now.

These people who are calling the democrats no better then republicans have either spent the last seven years on another planet, or are living so far in the clouds they will never come down. They are expecting perfection. To all of you out there taking the Kucinich route, listen up: no party is perfect but some are worse then others, there is such a thing as the lesser of two evils. Yes, the democrats have let us down on a number of occasions, but at least if they are in power they won't abuse it nearly as bad as the republicans did. We wouldn't be liberals if we thought they would. Hillary Clinton, for all of her faults, is not George W. Bush. Would you be able to say that about a Mitt Romney or a Rudy Giuliani if they get into power? We need to stop persuing pie in the sky dreams and live in the real world.

This is why Iraq is such a massive 'blunder.' It's Catch-22, a rock and a hard place, damned if you do and damned if you don't all rolled into one. No one is convincing, no one has figured it out, certainly not our president who seems more interested in campaigning, throwing out slogans and platitudes than being a leader to his people. We have not figured out as a nation what the right thing to do is in Iraq. The candidates who have formed an opinion, who have taken sides on whether we should go or stay are therefore, in my opinion, showing their true colors...they are taking sides without a real plan, i.e. they are taking sides for political reasons, they are maneuvering. This is not what we want in a president. It is not genuine. It is not intelligent. It is not measured. We already have a president who fits this bill and more. We need someone different. To defeat the Repulicans resoundingly, the Democratic Party needs to fully embrace the qualities that George Bush lacks the most...wisdom, caution, diplomacy, intelligence, measured actions, treading lightly, accountability, openness, honesty, reasonableness, judiciousness. All these qualities draw a very clear picture of the flaws we need to avoid, the mistakes we need to correct. If we are a good Party we will do this and maybe we'll live in an America that once again makes positive contributions to the world and a president with the depth, character, and wisdom to show us the way. Barack Obama is all of these things and probably more. He is certainly the least like Bush.