Glenn, I know what an "analogy" is, but thanks. When people make "analogies" between Israel and Nazi Germany, I think they usually do it to be purposely obnoxious and gratuitously insulting to Jews who are fond of Israel. It's amazing how often such "analogies" are made, particularly in the left blogosphere, as if there is just no source of apropos "analogies" for Israel other than Nazi Germany. As if, in all human history, there is just nothing else one could possibly think of in order to make an "analogy" involving Israel. It sucks, in my opinion.

Although you make an ostentatious point of telling me that the blogger in question is Jewish, that is of limited relevance to me. Could a gay person make a remark about homosexuals or homosexuality that you found offensive, and if so, would the person being gay make it OK?

Because there's nothing "left wing," "right wing," "liberal," or "conservative" about the 4th Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Excuse me, what exactly do you think is unreasonable about looking at communications that breach the border? If you cross the border in person, your laptop, luggage, auto, and body cavities with no warrant. What makes you being a party to a foreign wiretap so special?

I plan to withhold my vote for Obama in the general election because this is the only language in which I can say, "I oppose you," without actually voting for John McCain.

I presume this point has already been made but just in case...If you don't vote for Obama you DO enable a marginal vote for McCain. That is to say you don't offset, invalidate, or disable a McCain voter.

Or better yet, if there were 20 voters in an election evenly split in philosophy but not smarts, and one decides not to vote -- rather than 10-10 tie, the contest might be a 10-9 win. So yes, you could be making that extra vote for McCain, a winner.

The line between reason and insanity is, indeed, finely drawn. Technologically, we have been stepping over it for some time. Not in terms of what has been developed so much as in how we have chosen to apply it.

In hindsight, my reclusive lady was, indeed, much less naive than I.

In one of its common segues, my thought process is now linking the rapid increase in recent years in the use of mood-altering pharmaceuticals (the "legal" ones, that is). My acquaintance likely had some interesting insights into that as well as she never seemed inclined to 'take her meds' as advised either...there are many ways to induce narcolepsy.

The abiding myth of democratic politics is the "people’s champion". Until recently, the Obama campaign exemplified the power that can be drawn from the public enthusiasm that results from aligning politics with public opinion.

When public opinion skews heavily in one direction, politics should be as simple as Obama made it look (not that it is simple, but at least until Rev. Wright Redux, the resonance between Obama and public opinion produced a naturally reinforcing effect).

American voters are resilient (I still marvel how you recovered from 2004, an election that, in my naïveté, I thought was both a “must win” and a “can’t lose”). However, I was also struck by the fact that Kerry appeared to be a candidate precisely manufactured to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

This time around, I find myself the cynical one, one who sees a clear path to a McCain victory – the path that Obama is following, like Kerry before him, made all the more agonizing because it has appeared that Obama would blaze his own trail based solely on the compass of public opinion, i.e., based on what the public wants the job to be, not the actual exigencies of the job.

This did not lead me to conclude that Obama would actually achieve change (the proof thereof lies strictly in the pudding), but that he might be elected purely on the basis of such promise and its resonating effect.

The divorce we may be starting to see between politics and public opinion suggests there is “another woman”. In the IOZ piece to which Glenn links in his column today, can be found the following statement: Whatever his private feelings, the Empire makes certain demands on a man.

I believe this statement, in a general but concise fashion, identifies the siren whose song is more alluring than the voice of the people.

He ask if they serve "Prozac Tea" and request the cheapest wine that's on the liquor-list for alcoholic bosses who op pain pills.

Kishke! He demand plates to be filled.

Kishke! He craves the pork intestines.

Gads...! He has a gut that's pure sop.

Some day 242 will become a UT fan.

It's so hot the fan don't cool readers.

It's past time to go jump into a creek.

Strange Bedfellows imo. And one day Harry Potter will be all grown up.

I meant to say: `242 sits on a pancake.

242 is mistaking a pancake for a whoopee cushion.

He thinks we readers are as flat as a dirty pancake?

Poor 242.

242 sits on a pancake to prick and deflate it.

242 has a big pitchfork tail-end stinger on it.

I agree with you about what's been losing elections. The reason I had liked Obama was that he seemed to be able to fight back against attacks rather than using the common Democratic defense

They can't say that! It's MEAN! And it's not even true!

which is no defense at all against swiftboat attacks. The sad thing is that Obama seems to have completely lost the gumption he had and isn't fighting back any more.

I like Brown. I've argued here and elsewhere that he'd be my #1 choice as Obama's running mate. Voted against the war in the House, hails from a key battleground state, won his senate seat by running on a populist Edwards-like platform, serves a state whose gov is a dem (thus his senate seat wouldn't be lost to a republican) and is even relatively young and attractive (yes, such things can matter). Anyway, I think I'm waaaaaaaay in the minority, but so far, I've seen no one better.