And it's not just because of Bridget. She completely lost me last night when she talked about the poor downtrodden people around the world, and those who are struggling economically in the U.S., while wearing a $300,000 outfit and showing the sincerest, most caring look she could muster. What a phony!

I vacillate back and forth first I think to myself, well people aren't that dumb, and then I say to myself, wait people are that dumb. I ma just keeping my fingers crossed now Joan, and I am also volunteering to go to Michigan, taking some time off work in October to do field work for the Democratic ticket. I guess if we want to win, we have to get out there and let folks know the reasons to reject the Republican agenda. I hope they will.

I think this is a very weak pair for DC. It could be that they are the equivalent of Putin's insertion of his toy in Moscow. They especially McCain have no political depth and could once in Washington be easily isolated. With a rudderless Congress and straight and flat line Supreme Court, the ideal of a dead and bankrupt federal government would meet the Reagan objective set forth over 28 years ago. Alaska GOP gets the bonus of Palin's departure to a position of no power with no return phone calls.

Now you'll have a couple of months to enjoy being on the receiving end of the kind of random charges of sexism you helped foster in this letters section during the primary. You already effed up as a matter of fact; even though you studiously avoided calling Palin the queen of mean, that little Yum-O joke, oh, you'll be called sexist for that. What are you, comparing this serious, unquestionably qualified, strong female candidate a lightweight cooking show hostess like Rachael Ray? How dare you? Who would ever say that about a man?

And pretty soon after, any and all legitimate criticisms or questions you ask about Palin will be labeled sexist. (Just ask James Carville.)

As for whether the nasty tactics of the right might work... they will. We're fucked.

This election will be between Obama and McCain, Democrats and Republicans. Take note of Obama's early strategy to stay on McCain and basically ignore Palin. If McCain starts to catch Obama in the polls then it will be the debates (actually, how the news media describe the debates) that our sub-cortical swing-voters will use to decide.

I found her speech phony and her standing there with her diamond pins of Navy and USMC infuriated me. They cost more than a soldier makes in a few months.

Showing footage of a fake military funeral was insulting to the military families that have lost love ones in the middle east. I think we need to send them down to Arlington and show them all the new headstones the fiasco in Iraq has created. I was amazed at all the new ones from the last time I attended a funeral up there. It is not fun, and if they are willing to show actors at a military funeral they should be willing to allow families to have media there if they wish. Showing the 9/11 footage during a political event was disgraceful and insulting to people who lost loved ones.

The only good thing that came out of last week is we saw the Republicans for who they are really are and Colbert gets a Green and Blue screen.

Conservatives have accused those who question Palin's priorities in choosing to run for VP with a very young child with Down Syndrome as being sexist, and that no man would have been subjected to those kinds of questions.

In this, I think Palin is trying to have it both ways. Once she defined herself as a "Hockey Mom", she opened the question of how good a mother she actually is. John McCain, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden didn't introduce themselves as "Hockey Dads", "Soccer Dads", or any other kind of "Dad". Sure, they've talked about their children and their families, but they presented themselves as Senators. Palin, on the other hand, want to have the benefits of being a "Hockey Mom" without taking the risk that someone might question whether you can really be a "Hockey Mom" and Vice President at the same time.

Palin and McCain have been using their children all week. Parading out your pregnant teenager and her "fiancee"? Passing around your 4-month-old "special needs" child like he was a sack of potatoes? (Shouldn't he be home sleeping?) And serving up your dark-skinned daughter as an example of your altruism? It's despicable--and transparent. At least to those of us with half a brain.

LIE. What a refreshing word. Rachel Maddow is filling in for Olberman tonight and she just said what needed to be said about everything McCain and Mooseface are saying on the stump She cited every item they are wrong on followed by LIE! They need to be called out on it not with Kerry like euphemisms like misspoke or not truthful They are all sacks of lieing shit and I want to hear it every time they do it . Lets start a trend

Who are watching to see what happens here in the states in November. The general feeling amongst extended family relatives back in Egypt, is that if America, and by extension Americans, want to commit international suicide, they'll bring back 4 more years of republican rule. The republicans keep on talking about how the surge of American troops in Iraq was "worked." It hasn't. The Iraqi army isn't keeping Iraq's government together and running, it's all still being held togther by the military forces of the U.S.

The republicans are going to keep on pointing to a decrease in violence in Iraq, and in so doing, suggest they've achieved something.

Everybody in the region realizes and knows once American forces leave Iraq (whether sooner or later) old antagonists are going to go at against each other just the way Lebanon did after the French left behind a colonial government, that was quickly thrown aside as competing religious and mercantile communities fought for years to control the largest chunk of power in the country.

McCain thinks he will make Bush's bad idea of nation building work. It won't work. It won't ever. Iraqis are proud people and they hate having an overlord presiding as the real power over them. They will do with Iraq whatever they want without any concern for Washigton's wants.

I think though that the one illusion that all Americans should cure themselves of, is the idea that American nation building will work in Iraq, and Americans should ask themselves if they want to invest their hopes in McCain's mindless idealism that it will.

Obama's idea of incrementally exiting Iraq is the only sensible plan I've seen put forward buy any American politician.

McCain is a step back into madness, Obama is a step forward in a new direction.