Unhappily "gibbering fool" was exactly what I thought about the current incumbent in 1999.  The liberal media will still manage to spin idiocy into "guy you'd most want to have a beer with" for the gibbering fools that vote in the red states.

Have you learned nothing from George W. Bush?

Lieberman Media?  You mean the kind that masquerade as democratic but are republican through and through?

Ohhh, you said liberal media!  Like Tim Russert? Faux News?

What liberal media are you referring to? 

So, apparently Allen is both a fool and a crook? That should make him a Republican wet dream.

So what you are saying is that the corporate media will accept anyone who the major instututional parties present, and treat them as credible merely because they have been  presented by one or the other of the major parties.  

Seems reasonable to me.

Any idea why that might be true?

Is there any reason why the media might accept the conservative offering as more acceptable than the liberal one? Because the treatment of the Democratic candidates by the media seem to indicate that the media don't like them at all.

Is potential power more important than honesty and accuracy?

Oh boy petey is at it again.  Can someone take him outside and explain the TPMCafe rating system to him again?

That gibbering fools with enough corporate media backing can bamboozle the red states?  That election fraud can be helpful to steal the government?  That blindly following fascist corporate dictum can lead to wars of choice?

What's your point?

Until you realize that you lose because you message and candidates suck... I know, I'm wasting my breath... 'Dean-Pelosi' 08!!! 

SFCWallace: Uh, don't mean to 'drift' here but had to throw this in...allowing people to keep their money is not 'shifitng' money. The only shift comes when you take a persons money and give it to someone who didn't earn it. No I know your intentions are noble but it is just factually incorrect  to refer to it as shifting the country's wealth... (unless you are talking about it going in the other direction).

This only follows if you assume (1) the free market system is natural and inherently fair, and that any government interference with it is unnatural and unfair; and (2) the Republican government isn't interfering with the free market to favor the rich and powerful.

I don't buy (1), and (2) is objectively false. The Medicare drug plan and the Bush energy plan both contain big subsidies to corporations and prevent consumers from organizing to fight back. (Why is it fair and natural for a drug company to set a take-it-or-leave-it price on its drug, but not fair for consumers to band together through their government to set a lower take-it-or-leave-it price?)

As for (1), the whole property system is a social creation; there's not a damn thing natural about it. The idea that there is such a thing as "my money" prior to any social intervention is just nonsense. The market itself is a massive social intervention.

allowing people to keep their money is not 'shifitng' money. The only shift comes when you take a persons money and give it to someone who didn't earn it.

When, over time, rich people get richer and poor people poorer, that's a shift.

When the middle class -- good, hardworking people who "earn" their money -- end up with less money and less purchasing power, that's a shift.

Going by your statement, the only people who "earn" their money are the top 1 or 2 percent richest in the country.

J Bean has a point. George Allen, my junior senator, well worth that prefix, is more articulate than Bush ever was. True, that is not saying much, but his appeal should not be minimized.

When it comes to use of public services -- "common weal" or "the wealth of all" -- the wealthy spend a much smaller proportion of their income on upkeep -- on schools, highways, libraries, parks, public buildings, etc.  There's a certain amount of ignorance (and a major bulge of arrogance) in those who think they "made it own their own."  Sure, pretty much everyone gets his/her own "bootstraps" in America -- it's just that the bootstraps of some are made of much more secure materials than others...

What people earn too often has little correlation to what they contribute.  Nurses/systems analysts, teachers/CEO's, etc.  Where we've gone badly wrong has been where we've equated wealth with worth.  We certainly need to shift away from that misperception!

Regarding:

 allowing people to keep their money is not 'shifitng' money. 

Isn't amazing how the entire fabric of society can be simplified when stingy rich people get the benefit.  To call it "their" money ignores all the social institutions that HELPED them get it.  The police that keep other people from walking in and waltzing off with it, the banking structure that makes electronic digits feel like money, the federal oversight of the stock markets and money markets that keep the scheming frauds from slipping the money out of their hands, the soldiers that fight wars to protect their country where they keep this money, the media-consumer economy that helps generate their wealth by convincing people to by so many shoddy and pointless goods.

When wealthy people pay taxes, they are paying a legitimate PRICE of their own well being, they are not forefeiting THEIR money.  It pisses me off that a-holes pretend otherwise. 

I don't see how the "party establishment" hates McCain. The social conservatives are wary of him but these people like power moret than anything else and he offers it. The "money" republicans know that he's as much a corporate stooge as any of the lot.

I'm not sure why we think Allen is the likely nominee; other than a few republican operatives, he has not shown much support.

And I think therein is the issue; McCain (unlike young W, c. 1998 or young George, today) has a series of long-serving operatives that will run his campaign (Weaver, Davis, Salter) plus a few major figures already showing readiness to work for him (McKinnon, Gillespie), so that lives little role for, say, Matalin or anyone else who has been talking up Allen.

Is that a totally unreasonable interpretation of the perception of "party establishment" support for Allen?

I'd bet heavily on McCain to be the GOP nominee.

SFCWallace says:
"Uh, don't mean to 'drift' here but had to throw this in...allowing people to keep their money is not 'shifitng' money. The only shift comes when you take a persons money and give it to someone who didn't earn it."

Since we are digressing, let me explain something to you here.  I am a genuine rich person.  Not, maybe, rich enough to have benefitted from W's tax giveaway (at least until my parents pass away -- hopefully far in the future), but my husband and I each earn somewhere in the low 6 figures.  We are smart enough to understand that we didn't get here entirely by the sweat of our own brows.  We had the advantage of being born with a skin color that makes life easier and I had the benefit of educated parents. We both benefitted from large amounts of nearly free education paid for by that money that was "taken away" from other people.  We live in nice, safe neighborhoods that are protected by cops and firefighters who are paid well enough that they aren't on the take.  The city sent inspectors out as our house was being built to make sure that it met safety standards.  We are surrounded by other people who were educated with more of that money.  We drive to our jobs on roads that were paid for by taxes.  Some of our income comes directly from the federal and state governments.  Many of our recreational activities involve technology that originated in federal programs (thank you, Mr. Gore).  If I thought a while, I could come up with more examples. 

I've received more benefits than some people, so I think that I have a greater debt to repay than someone who makes less money than I do.  I don't see why you have so much trouble understanding that. 

It may not be too simplistic to say that liberals approach the society like we're all in this together, while conservatives approach it as every man for himself.

Actually if it was just the few things that came to mind that Liberals tried to get the government to take over and support through the redistribution of wealth, there woudn't be much of a problem. It the whole "cradle to grave" public support mentality that drives conservatives crazy. I don't mind helping out those who need it, I do mind helping those who don't need it but figure out taking it is easier than earning your own.

One of the ways the banker Republicans get away with their greedy ways is appealing to the greed of those who have just a tiny hope of becoming as obscenely rich as themselves.  SFC, we all depend on each other and the social context.  Any belief that you don't is stubborn machismo, like the flight suit machismo of George Bush, when he prematurely declared victory in Iraq. 

If your income is above median, you got it the same way everyone else above median did, a college degree and a lot of good luck in job placement early in life.  If your income is above mean, you were well connected at birth.

SFC, do you have a clue how much the public services you use cost?