I listened to almost all of almost every episode of Al's show on Air America. Al is a really good-hearted, smart person who is obsessed with seeking truth. The success of lying liars really got away with him.

His show involved a lot of people, some of whom were sitting on the ready to Google up facts on short notice. It was always a conversation among intellectuals that would sometimes go into a mild rant. He loved needling Rush and O'Reilly, but he had a great circle of outside people he would interview each week, usually about what was going on in the political world. [Josh Marshall was on often.]

For as much as I listened, btw, I would never have referred to Al as foul-mouthed, even before he started thinking seriously about running for office. Rather, he was funny, sometimes overbearing, but always with good principles at heart, if not for humor. But the humor was interlaced with hard concentration on what was happening in the world, reported from all over.

By the time Al decided to run, I had taken him seriously for quite some time, and I was sure that his "public persona" was far from his real personality. He's great with audiences, and he can't help but let a little humor through. He's very quick to pick up on irony, and has a knack for turning it around in a funny, creative way. So, I expected him to win people over as they got to know him better. But he's dead serious about wanting to help lead the country in what he believes to be the right direction, with great inspiration from Wellstone.

Posted at October 10, 2008 11:28 AM in response to Upset On Horizon? Franken Surging Ahead In Minnesota Senate Race

With respect to administration officials, this is certainly true. Not so for everyman, of course. For me, this has wiped out any respect I once had for our upholding the separation of powers and the rule of law over the executive branch. It doesn't exist. We now know that the success of these ideals in America rests on the benevolence of the people in power. I suppose it always has.

Posted at July 10, 2008 10:04 PM in response to Report: Bush Officials Not Happy About Possible Obama Speech At Brandenburg Gate

No, Hoppy, yours seems just another set of links in the "system." It would be nice if human systems could be described so succinctly, but we oversimplify if we attribute long-term human political and economic trends to simple explanations. That said, your suggested mechanism seems like a very likely mechanism that would contribute toward lock-in, once established.

Posted at April 28, 2008 8:19 PM in response to Nothing New About "Neo"-Conservative Foreign Policy