There's got to be a "man bites dog" story in there somewhere. Oh yeah, he called the WaPo editorial board "often sensible." That must be the days when Hiatt's in high dudgeon over someone calling the President a liar or a criminal...

Liberals are scary!

duh!

With this post, you've failed to type words from which the breathless and overwrought can infer you are in the tank for Hillary.

Newtie and GWB's pet Rat Rovie are just lobbing a few shots off the bough in preparation for deployment of the big guns. The big guns will commence firing once there is a Dem Candidate. They can't do much more to Hill'y so it's target practice at Obama. It's like in the Wizard of Oz, when the Wicked Witch sends out the winged monkeys to 'take the steam' out of Dorothy's posse or in Star Wars when Darth Vader dispatches a batallion of drones to capture Luke.

They just want to ruffle us up but not destroy the fun they're having fucking with the American people. The fact that they can live so comfortably within their scaly skin just shows how dispicable and low they are. Aren't these guys the type your Jesus is supposed to send to Hell? I guess this debunks yet another hoax.

Anyone that claims someone is to the left of Fiengold needs real help. Or is transparently lying to accomplish a political objective.

the GOP probably knows, as a group, that it loses most Americans on every major issue of concern..so, they use really mind-numbingly stupid and simple-minded smears to seal up their Base, whatever may be left of it once Obama is the nominee.

I think the GOP knows it's going to get utterly clobbered this time, and they're throwing up anything and everything to see what sticks. What do they have to lose?

This kind of genuinely stupid behavior (OMG, the *liberals* might get us!) suggests that the GOP knows it's toast, and since they've had it, they're gonna have fun as they flame out. Wouldn't you? Having fun beats the alternative, whatever it may be.

And, who knows? Something may stick. All that money they give to Nader may provide him some traction.. worth a try, anyway, right?

Anyone else think that the National Journal may jigger its methology on these studies just to increase its own profile? It seems somewhat odd that the presumptive nominee seems to alway be "OMG THE MOST LIBERAL" when anyone paying attention to these people's positions know that they fall to the conservative side of several other Senators. I know the "fourth most liberal Senator" (which in the grand scheme of things isn't particularly liberal) doesn't have the same punch so it makes me wonder.

This sort of alarmist reaction by Mr. Koppelman is precisely why these attacks have worked by the right against Democrats so well in the past. The nervous dodginess that Kerry and others have used in the past rarely sits well with the public--regardless of what substance the attacks themselves might entail.

It's amusing that elsewhere on this site today, Glenn Greenwald detailed precisely what skill and adept Senator Obama has shown in deflecting right wing attacks through both his trademarked "rise above the fray" standard as well as flat out attacking the premise of the attack itself. I see no reason to believe that things should change once the Noise Machine latches onto this mem in particular.

Being the most liberal member of an august body like the US Senate hardly qualifies one as a hard-core leftist. But then, you know I think that the people who worry about this aren't particularly likely to vote for the Dem anyway.

But it does make me wonder, did Russ and Bernie miss some key votes?

All through the primary Obama and his outright rabid supporters berated a far more accomplished progressive for not being liberal enough.

Now that the "L" tattoo is firmly on his forehead, making him unelectable obviously, it's too late to run away from it.

Maybe, and I mean maybe, 22% of the voting electorate is leftwing liberal, and they reside in select pockets of urban areas.

No way will you win a general election like that. The left never learns.

Being "proud" of it won't help. So just keep going in a cirle every four years.

You COULD have STFU and let our seemingly more centrist candidate win the primary united and beat John McCain.

But you had to have Obama, and now you lose big.

If they have Joe Biden as the 3rd most liberal Senator. I love Joe (for the most part), but he's more like 23rd on that scale.

But then, you know I think that the people who worry about this aren't particularly likely to vote for the Dem anyway.

It makes a big difference in middle-road America. They'd vote for a mainstream Dem, but not a liberal. Unfortunately you have to think that way to win, but if you want to make the primary a liberal pissing contest every four years instead of a process of putting forth a strong candidate, than expect to go down in landslide defeats (which just makes people hate and dis you even more).

and should return to their republican handlers.

well, I'm sure it's really easy to say that everyone who points out the obvious is a Republican along with your other ghetto vulgarity. Actually I'm not and probably never will be, but I admit this year I'm simply not voting.

This dumb dumb dumb assine snatch of defeat from victory the left has done with Obama is something I am not going to participate in. You go down alone.

Toodles.

In my thesaurus from Microsoft, synonyms for liberal are:

open-minded; broadminded; moderate; noninterventionist; free-thinking; tolerant; laissez-faire. Also, generous; copious; abundant; profuse; substantial; large.

Are these definitions anathema to a "conservative"? I would be happy to be referred to as most of these words. Are conservatives the opposite of these characteristics?

I don't get it!

peace,

st john

"I am Committed to Openness through Justice and Transformation"