"Let's hope Obama is not a second FDR since the latter's policies not only worsened the Depression but also prolonged it."

FDR was a pragmatist and an experimentalist. His policies during his first term helped tremendously, on the whole. After 1936, he tried to avoid deficit spending, the conservative approach [that he had run on in 1932] with catastrophic consequences.

Keynesianism was only then being invented. We have the advantage of 75 years' study. But scholarship doesn't decide goals.

The Conservatives have ruled for 30 years, and enriched only the already-rich, while wrecking the country with a collapsed economy, huge debt, war for conquest, the disgrace of torture, and greatly aggravated factionalism.

The opposite of everything Bush has done would noty be perfect, but it would be better.

It's funny but George H. Bush is the president who made me into a Democrat...in my first election I voted for Clinton because Bush had grown government (and so had Reagan) while talking about (only talking about) small government...did you hear what I said about on Fox news they even said on Fox news that Republicans have increased the size of government and spending at twice the rate Democrats have...since Reagan.

Of course, seeing Bush jr. I have cause to regret my contempt for Bush sr...bush sr. was a much better Republican than Reagan or his son. I think now how smart he was to have an exit strategy in Iraq...

The trouble is though that even if you have what all conservatives want--or the party says it wants--on abortion: the legality overturned (is this what you want?) it doesn't solve the biggest question I have on abortion: why are the u.s. abortion rates so much higher than other countries with legalized abortion?

In Europe abortion is legal but much more rare than here. Overturning legality--unless you also decrease demand--won't solve the problem. So is making abortion illegal more important or making it rare more important to you? If making abortion rare is more important, then I think the Democrats have a better strategy in reforming health care and providing abstinence plus education to high schoolers...are you aware that sex ed programs have been defunded from the federal government for teaching "plus" (ie condom use etc.) under Bush? And teen age pregnancy rates in America have risen to become the highest in the "first" world...as are teen age STD rates. Is this something that we, as a nation, plan to do anything about? I find these numbers depressing, to say the least.

I think that conservatives and liberals see the world through a very different lens....conservatives, or so Thomas Frank argues in his very excellent book "The Wrecking Crew" have come to believe that government isn't important, and therefore competent people aren't necessary to government. This is why, Frank argues, Bush deliberately appointed incompetent people in federal roles...thinking that competent people wouldn't want to work in government anyway. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy though, doesn't it? You think government is incompetent so you create an incompetent government to fulfill your own beliefs about government.

The problem for fiscal conservatives though is that incompetent government generally costs more than competent government...all the blunders and the mistakes have added a lot to the costs of everything from the Iraq war to the clean up of Katrina...not to mention lives lost in both places due to government incompetence. And anger on the part of the populace.

I would like to see the conservative party work harder once again at competence and at fiscal responsibility...but right now I don't see either of these as goals of most conservatives. They seem to just want to play the same old culture war games...this banking crisis is freaking me out. The citi bailout in particular makes me sick to my stomach. But how do conservatives not seem to think that they bear any responsibility for the crisis? How have they allowed themselves complete forgiveness on this issue that they clearly (being the majority in office in two branches of government for most of the past 8 years and control of congress since 1994 with a fillibuster-proof majority in the clinton years....the conservatives bear more responsibility for this crisis because they have been at the helm...but I see no backtracking of strategy or admitting of error from those who have been in power or those advising them.

p.s. i'm sorry you're sick...i've been sick this week too and am just getting over it. I was going to go out tonight but I can't face the cold...and I live in san francisco. pathetic, but there it is. I like talking with you too, although I don't see what you see in palin...even on the abortion issue I don't see her as being able to win women over on that issue...and without the support of women, she will have a hard time winning the presidency. Many women tend to vote Democratically because of the abortion issue. How will Palin change that...or is she just relying on the male vote to get elected?

I supported Barack Obama because I wanted a complete change from the incompetent, corrupt, and immoral Bush/Cheney regime.

Obama is highly intelligent, eloquent, involved, and knows how to work with the team he has selected to accomplish goals that are in the best interest of the United States and the world. I am very happy with the change I have seen so far.

So believe the insecure.

There is impeachment. And there is racism. And there are Republicans and "conservatives" who will never support Obama, no matter what.

And there is the far-right lunatic fringe which will attack with lies and smears anyone that doesn't hold their exact same views.

And then there are dip-shit "pundits" who have to write something, anything, in effort to invent non-existent controversy -- melo/drama -- so as to maintain their pseudo-relevance. Most of which has no bearing on reality, or on political history except at its most theoretical and tangential.

Obama isn't yet in office, but as he was elected, it is time to get our accusations in -- early as possible -- so later we can say, "I told you so!" even if the basis for that is then more made-up horseshit.