Got a list of names, people in office or policy-making power?

Don't believe I've seen anyone sane in a senior position within the Republican Party for a very long time.

As to it being "sad" for the Republican Party I don't have that feeling at all. Serves the bastards right; let 'em die in the dark for all I care. For America, shutting down an organized crime syndicate can't be anything but good.

Not a tear from me; not a single one.

Excellent indeed. May they all fester and decompose. Step 1, and I will be delighted to check it off the list.

Squeezing the Republican Party into a marginalized position will, inevitably, mean that some "moderate" Conservative idiots will realign with the Democrats. The presence of those Conservatives creates both a challenge and an opportunity, where no opportunity previously existed. It is an emergent moment, a rebirth of the Political dialogue, and this is why people describe it in messianic terms - the secular world does not have the vocabulary to express what is being felt.

Marginalizing the Right will inevitably - inevitably - shift the center of the public policy discussion to the Left. The argument about what to do and when will no longer be centered between Conservatives and Reactionaries, as it has been for 40 years. The center will shift to a discussion between Conservatives and Progressives, the Overton Window will move leftward, and that is entirely a good thing.

Courage, Lambert; that's the ticket. If Progressive thought is correct, if Progressive goals are just and worthy, then an opportunity is all we need to see them through. This election, rather the outcome of this election, is the first opportunity for Progressives in 40 years and I firmly believe it is cause for celebration.

I am hopeful for the first time in a very long time, and it has nothing to do with Mr. Obama in particular. No offense, I am sure he is a fine young man, but he is just a player in the play and I am quite content to let him strut his time upon the stage so long as his being there advances my purposes - and it does.

Meanwhile, we should focus on writing the play and recruiting the cast for the next production; there will be a next production, and we have now a chance to make it ours.

Matthew 11:15

seems juvenile to me. I would almost say to each his own, but this is a group blog and what's posted does reflect on all here.

It's ugly and, yes, possibly sexist. Given the wording, I go with sexist. Woman as evil hag. Corrupted and corrupting. Yech.

I almost didn't come back to check comments bcz of the illustration used. Turns my stomach.

It reminds me of some of the ugly running "joke" sexist comments about Elizabeth Dole, which always made my stomach turn a bit over at Eschaton.

Sexism--it's what's for some Dems and Lefties. Alas.

Get used to it, sweeties...NOT.

This is what happens when the Party of Misogyny uses sexist criteria for selection of a VP candidate - people notice, and remark on it.

Surely you don't think Palin was chosen for her national policy experience, or demonstrated administrative competence or regional influence, do you? She had two characteristics, red-meat Republican base fundamentalism and the fact that she’s a she. Half the reason she was chosen was sex-based; can’t do that and not get called on it, not in my world anyway.

Her selection was entirely cynical and, from my perspective, demeaning entirely towards any and all aspirations of feminism. Hell, any and all aspirations of humanism.

And while I have you here, let's just take a sharp look at who it is that's being sexist. Tell me, protector of the rules of feminism, just why exactly is the metaphor "apron strings of power" inherently demeaning? Are you arguing that strength cannot come from origins of domesticity? That societally stereotypical gender roles cannot be turned upside down and used as instruments of power? That "feminine" and "feminist" are incompatible? We’re way past that now; it is precisely in taking the inherent power of all that is female including stereotypical accoutrements and turning them into instruments of success and accomplishment that feminism will reach its goals.

Not every chide is sexist, not every allusion is misogyny, and not every criticism of Sarah Palin is unfounded. Is some of what's been thrown at her unfair? Probably so; doesn't make her a figure worth defending, though. When you stick your tit dick finger into the wringer of national politics, you will get pinched. Welcome to the wonderful world of Equality, where everyone gets unfairly abused.

frame it by attacking her gender. That's what I was saying.

It's what Hillary said on Day One of her being named as McCain's VP. Go after the policies, the actions, the words--not her sex.

I didn't like seeing Hillary compared to a hag-I don't like seeing Palin treated that way. That's all.

Bottom photo gratuitous. Apron strings? I go with Paul. But it is so easy to make fun of people for things they have no control over. Like Hillary's age, wrinkles, legs. I stopped watching Letterman for years when he couldn't stop making fun of Bill Clinton's physique, his chunky thighs, calling him fat, etc. WTF was that about, Dave??? Sheesh.

Take on the policies. Actions.

Ritually, to be sure, a practice not limited to Christian beliefs. Way out West here in what was once Mexico and may yet be again, we celebrate lots of holidays you in the East don't get a crack at. This afternoon will bring pan de muerte from the neighbors across the street, to go with chicken soup with chilis and tamales and rice and beans. In deep Mexico this is a sad day, the day to remember deaths of children, but up North it has been a little blurred and softened and generally a happier event.

Tonight, hot chocolate with cinnamon and vanilla and raw sugar with a sprinkle of chili powder. Warming, all the way down.

the current Democratic party powerbrokers. She may run, but she won't become the Presidential nominee.

She can only ever run as veep for now--and she knows it. Maybe after another decade of experience governing--and national postive coverage, which she doesn't have at all--the media hates her--she can pull a Reagan (but it took even him a long time and more than one cycle of trying to become the nominee.)

so funny how McCain gets no attention--here or at most blogs. very telling too.

Not at all interested. As a recovering Crazy Woman addict, I try to stay as far away as possible.

Has Sarah Palin really done more damage to the country than Colin Powell?
Not yet. I'd very much like to keep it that way.

Have I lionized a Republican lately? Seems to me all the props going to Palin as well as McCain are coming from other people here. Perhaps you have me confused with someone else.

"Its almost as if some folks don’t wanna bother looking at very recent history."

I wonder why?

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi

Sarah, you're really not telling me anything I don't already know.

Palin is just as scary as any other right wing Republican (although, so far as I know, Palin's kids don't shoot dogs, unlike Huckabee's). But Palin doesn't have any power to affect policies that directly affect me.

The smarter and more opportunistic Republicans who became Democrats do have that power and will exercise it; I doubt very much that their policies have changed; when they changed jerseys, it was all about being with the winner, and nothing more.

So, the policies that will be (make that already have been, as in FISA and the bailout) put in place by -- I predict -- Obama's center right coalition are a good deal more scary to me, as they should be. Lots of these policy matters are literally and exactly, life and death matters for many -- universal health care, of course, but also the slow limitation of choices as trillions bleed away to the banks and working people, the poor, women, and the old find their lives just a little bit harder this month, and the next month, and the next month, and so on, with actuarially lethal consequences for a percentage of them.

The really lethal dangers don't wink, aren't especially visible, and -- I know this will come as a surprise to you -- don't figure largely in the campaign, Village discourse, that subset of Village discourse known as the "progressive" [cough] blogosphere, or in our famously free press.

So, it's fun and easy and-oh-so Villageous to put up a picture of Palin winking along with an image of scary ghoul, but that's a fundamentally frivolous and distracting endeavor; wankery, as Atrios would call it.

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi