The lee side of cockpit of a good-sized sailboat, tied at a West Florida marina, with a slight breeze to keep the mosquitos down and the occasional sound of mullet jumping. A slight brackish scent in the air, enough humidity to keep you just below the sweat line, skin still radiating from the day.

Thank you for giving me a reason to think of that, landlocked and committed here in the desert.

Posted at July 7, 2008 12:32 AM in response to Where Does A Sofa Wait For You?

Following your own vision is a good thing -- having confidence in your abilities, despite what others think is a good thing. Standing up for your efforts is a good thing.

That's what the Fountainhead means to me. Now Atlas Shrugged, whole different ball game.

Posted at July 6, 2008 7:54 PM in response to Can someone please explain Bill Clinton?

FMLA wasn't progressive enough for you? Do you remember what it was like before?

I get it. You hate Clinton. You hate them both. You he should have been a true reformer like ... well, like someone. I don't know who that true reformer that would have been worthy of your support is, but, who has a long lists of progressive accomplishments on a national scal.'t Afer all, that's a long list of people, isn't it?

Posted at July 6, 2008 7:51 PM in response to Can someone please explain Bill Clinton?

Okay, Jason, you're right. Clinton did not fire a gun at the enemy. Clinton did not fly the planes and drop the bombs. Presidents get credit and blame for what their people do under their watch. Just like Bush didn't personally alter photographs or torture anyone, but he still gets the blame.

Posted at July 6, 2008 7:42 PM in response to Can someone please explain Bill Clinton?

Well, you could start with stopping the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans without a singloe NATO casualty. And doing so with a true coalition and multi-national force.

Domesticly, you could start with the balanced budgets, or the Family Medical Leave Act, or the Brady Bill. You could include standing up to a Republican Congress to get his budget passed.

But as far as I'm concerned, the biggest legacy is that he didn't back down to them. They tried to manuafacture a reason to force him to resign -- they even impeached him over a blowjob -- and he didn't back down. But he also let the proces play out. He didn't try to replace Starr like Nixon did with Cox. He took his lumps, and left with the highest approval rating of any President since WW2.

Posted at July 6, 2008 5:19 PM in response to Can someone please explain Bill Clinton?

Elizabeth, as a general rule, I really like what you write. But you're off on this.

Can you give me an example -- one -- of unethical behavior in the White House? I mean, aside from Lewinsky, which is matter between he and his wife. Unless you disagree and beleive that every candidate or elected official's consensual sexual activities are fair game. Assuming that's not the case, then what have you got?

Were the comments hurtful to Obama? I don't think so -- I think it keeps integrating the idea that McCain is potentially unstable, which only helps Obama.

Posted at July 6, 2008 5:13 PM in response to Can someone please explain Bill Clinton?

You have exactly one right point -- Bush won every recount, except, of course the last one that the Supreme Court stopped. Because he was going to lose that one -- every peice of evidence suggest that.

As for the assault charges against Clinton, I'd call them laughable. And unsupported. And manufactured. And lies. You know what, I have just as much evidence to say that as you say the other to be true.

What has split the country is the Republican philosophy that the opinion that matters is their own. That dissent equals un-Americanism. What has split the country is a President who lied not about blowjobs, but about matters that got people killed. What has split this country is that same President's complete lack of respect for the law, for the Constitution and for the people who exist under his authority. What has split the country is the Republican methodology of take and then take some more. Of course Democrats are so pissed -- we've tried to compromise, and the other side has used that "weakness" to to take and take and take. They've convinced the media and, I guess the public, that greed is good and it's every man for himself. And the liberals of the world disagee.

I'll be happy to get along with getting along with them, as soon as they give me everything I want. It works for them, why not for us?

Also, for the record, your statements about Florida in 2000 are completely untrue. I was in Palm Beach and Miami. I saw the manufactured protests by the Bush camp. I saw them storm the counters in Miami. I saw them threaten the lives of the committee members. It wasn't both sides taking to streets -- it was your side trying to bully your way into power.

One more detail, just so you know. The Bimbo Eruptions thing? That was from Primary Colors. Which was fiction. Good book, better movie, but fiction. As in made up. You know, like Iraq's nuclear program.

Posted at July 6, 2008 4:50 PM in response to Divided States of America

You know what's great about your post? You actually think he owes something to a campaign that spent four months calling him reckless and racist. You actually think that he should give a shit about how anything he says affects BO.

The man was the President of the United States. He is the only -- only -- democratic president to win re-election in 40 years. He guided this country through a economic boom, he kept us out of major wars, he created new jobs, he invigorated the Peace Corps and Job Corps, he left office with a budget surplus. He has served and lived his life with more responsibility and more gravitas than almost anyone on the planet. And he did it while under constant, unscrupulous and abhorent attacks that frankly, would have crippled almost any of us.

Since leaving office he may have made a lot of money, but he also has been a force for global change. He has spent a lifetime trying to help,

The man has earned the right to say whatever he damn well pleases. Doing so may not have been in his wife's best interest during her campaign, but he still earned the right to speak his mind.

That's my explaination of Bill Clinton. I hope in eight years Obama will have half the resume does.

Posted at July 6, 2008 4:09 PM in response to Can someone please explain Bill Clinton?

I don't know if you're ready to move off this, but I wanted to make this point.

You say Obama represents much more than his opinions or his policies. I couldn't disagree with you more. All we have of a politician are their opinions and their policies. We don't know them -- we don't know how they act behind closed doors, we can't, as Bush said of Putin, see inside their souls. What we have of political leaders are their words and their actions.

If you aren't basing your emphatic support of him on those things, what are you basing it on?

Posted at July 5, 2008 4:22 PM in response to Absolutism, The Far Left, and the Abandonment of Reason

Good God, those are four pretty big things to disagee with the candidate on, don't you think? Gun control, abortion, separation of church and state and the death penalty have been a large part of the progressive mantra for a while.

If you don't support his positions on those things, then what are you hanging your support on?

Just out of curiosity, aren't you surprised -- I won't even say disappointed -- aren't you surprised by his positions on those things? Don't you think they are different than you would have assumed them to be? Don't you think it is a fair statement that those positions are different than most progressives would have assumed them to be? And if that is the case, can you really blame the more invested of them from being pissed?

Posted at July 5, 2008 3:06 PM in response to Absolutism, The Far Left, and the Abandonment of Reason