frankly, i'm hoping they ignore her. that will continue the beneficial decline of the party.

orange

Barry Goldwater said the same thing years ago.

The degree to which she is taken seriously by the GOP=their chances at survival as a major party. Her analysis in both cases should have been heeded. She is one of very few GOP voices of reason remaining to be marginalized by the religious right.

Parker is correct.

The Democrats are going to be the majority party for the foreseeable future until either the left wing of the Democratic Party goes too far or the Republicans give up on social issue litmus tests.

It is virtually impossible to be a pro choice Republican. It is almost impossible to be a gay rights Republican. It is almost impossible to treat an immigrant as an actual persson if you want to survive a Republican primary.

There is a reason the Democrats biggest margins come from people under 30. Bush, Iraq, abortion, immigration and gay rights have forced most young people to avoid the Republican Party like the plague.

Whoohoo! Popcorn time!!

Don't listen to her treasonous ramblings, goopers! You can never have too much Jesus. Or Palin.

Regrettably for both the GOP and the nation, I think the wooden-crate faction has already effectively driven out or neutralized most of the party intelligentsia.

The GOP needs something like the Democratic Leadership Council to restore some realism to their party and save it from the wingnuts. Otherwise they are doomed to a long long spell in the wilderness.

On the substance, I think the GOP would be wise to take Parker's advice seriously.

No! Don't do it, GOP! Don't wave the white flag of surrender! Stay the course! Stay the course!

oh please oh please oh please let them NOT listen to people like Parker.

more Sarah Palin, more know-nothingness, more religious extremism! i want to see The Republican Party reduced to Nader-esque influence in my lifetime.

Parker continues to amaze. Will she make the full transformation and Huffingtonize?

It depends on how one defines "white".

But the vast majority of Americans are Christians.
The Christian right overlooks the diversity of opinion and beliefs among practicing Christians. While religion can unify people, divisions among sects are also divisive. The closer one Christian sect gets to being a "state approved sect", the more the competing sects will push back.

Let's just call it the permanent Republican minority. And let's be happy about it.

Right or wrong, if a far-left, liberal blog is supporting her courage and her point-of-view, then it's probably not good for the GOP.

She offers sound advice that I really hope the Rethugs don't take. With an administration, instead of a regime, actually governing and not pretending to bow to the religious loony-toons in policy matters, the influence of that wing of their party will diminish. The Robertsons, Perkins, Dobsons, if they aren't caught down someone's pants (of either gender) are getting old and tired. The next generation is not as likely to be quite as bellicose or intolerant.

Parker's advice to take religion off the table and make it more of a private matter, as it was for decades, would resonate with the blue coasts and attract a lot of independent voters. But until there is a major realignment among the Rethug wings, which might take another election cycle or two or three, they will increasingly be screaming to a deafer country. And not a moment too soon.

You would think the glibertarians would be all over this. They aren't completely stupid after all, they just like war and hate gay people and minorities.

On a more serious note, are there ANY Rockefeller republicans left?

Parker better change her address, phone number, and hire a full-time armed guard. I'm being only partly facetious. The hate and bile that will come flooding her way is going to be a wee bit unpleasant, and plenty of that hate and bile will be coming from "mainstream" media outlets like Fox. I can't imagine that Bill "Christmas is Under Attack from Atheist Savages" O'Reilly is going to be happy, for one. Good luck to her personally, but I hope the GOPers ignore her.

I wouldn't mind sharing a drink in a Georgetown cocktail lounge with Ms. Parker, but that's not where Republicans need to go for votes. So they'll continue to do pig roasts for Joe the Plumber and sing hallaluya to the choir.

If you don't believe in evolution, your party just might not evolve, choosing de-volution instead.

Fine by me.

The Palinistas are into "rapture" or "end-of-days"

I am in rapture because the repugnacans are in decline. Yahoo!

Religious conservatives aren't a problem for Republicans any more than atheists, gays, hispanics or any other group is a problem for the Democrats. Religious conservatives are Americans too, in case anyone has forgotten, and deserve to have their voices heard in the political process.

The real problems are...

1. Instead of broadly engaging religious conservatives and marginalizing the nut jobs, the moneycons and the neocons have basically relied on the loudest, most extreme voices to gin up the faithful and get them to vote the right way. Imagine if the most well known gay Democrats were Act Up and the most well known environmentalist Democrats were ELF.

2. The GOP only really feels comfortable with WHITE religious conservatives. Any minority theocons who tag along are tolerated, but there's no effort to make the party more acceptable to minorities who might hate gay marriage but also hate, for example, prison sentencing inequalities.

Mike

This might seem horribly OT, but PBS' Nova had a really great two hour special on the archeology of the Bible (at least the Torah).

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/

Coors beer has tired of the wooden crate crowd.

"Regrettably for both the GOP and the nation,"

Sorry, I fail to see how what's bad for the Republican Party is bad for the nation as a whole, seeing as how the Republican leaders view 98% of the nation's people as chattel to be used and abused at their whim.

Why does Kathleen Parker hate the troops so much?

Clear thinking conservatives must be elated.

She offers sound advice that I really hope the Rethugs don't take. With an administration, instead of a regime, actually governing and not pretending to bow to the religious loony-toons in policy matters, the influence of that wing of their party will diminish. The Robertsons, Perkins, Dobsons, if they aren't caught down someone's pants (of either gender) are getting old and tired. The next generation is not as likely to be quite as bellicose or intolerant.

Parker's advice to take religion off the table and make it more of a private matter, as it was for decades, would resonate with the blue coasts and attract a lot of independent voters. But until there is a major realignment among the Rethug wings, which might take another election cycle or two or three, they will increasingly be screaming to a deafer country. And not a moment too soon.

It depends on how one defines "white".

Anyone who's Asian is considered honorary white.

Think about it.

Parker is surprisingly candid in her assessment, criticizing the Republican Party for having "surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows."

Very surprising considering how Ms. Parker is the same person who wrote a War on Christmas column a few Decembers ago and this year speculated that Obama may not be a "full-blooded American." Hell, she even praised the living shit out of Palin's convention dogshit speech. So while Parker may have gotten something right recently, she seems like more of a treacly opportunist to me. Perhaps she's found a schtick and she'll run with it. I'm not holding my breath.

Well that is all fine and good, but remove them from the GOP and what is left ? They will never rid the party of the base, that is just plain crazy talk.

What they need to do is figure how to energize these folks w/o caving to their whims which is a damn hard act to pull off, but it has to be done if the GOP wants to compete.

The bad news for the GOP is that while it's true that the religious right wackos are driving away voters, the moneycons aren't helping either. (Perhaps you all might have heard some chatter about a massive Wall Street/Main Street economic collapse, precipitated not by Bible-waving nutjobs, but by that same "sober" bunch on the money side.) The Republicans are in dire condition now because BOTH sides of their coalition are deservedly discredited.

The theocons wanted to roll back the Enlightenment. The moneycons wanted to cut taxes forever while fighting as many simultaneous wars as possible. Neither turned out to be a usable governing philosophy. Who knew?

If we're really lucky, there will never be another GOP executive. I'm certainly hoping so. They have nothing substantial to offer politically. Not even Kathleen Parker.

are there ANY Rockefeller republicans left?

Yes, they are called Clintonites now, and several have just been hired to run the new administration.

Wouldn't the GOP without the fundies be a bit like the Dems without people who favor progressive taxation?

But the deeper problem is that the GOP's raison d'etre is that it's the party of the rich and the business interests. But to succeed, they need actual voting blocs whose interests aren't in conflict with those of the rich and of business.

For the past three decades, the fundies have been the key voting bloc in the GOP coalition. If the GOP kicks the fundies to the curb, where are the business interests going to find another bloc that doesn't mind supporting business' agenda while furthering their own?

I always saw felt that the coopting of the evangelical vote was a deal with the devil.

I think that the only way we see a different GOP is if some unforeseen (or at least under-foreseen) crisis hits that convinces much of the nation to return to a more hands-off, fiscally conservative party. Like, say, some massive flail of a Democratic initiative. If that happens, you could see someone sweep in and create some new coalition that does not include "the Base".

My two cents

Without the religious right, the Republican Party would only be composed of legacy MBA graduates and Washington, DC toadies. This group cannot win elections in a representative democracy without appealing to some other popular constituency. Without the religious right, the Republicans have little chance of winning national elections.

Wait -- I thought liberals were supposed to bend over backwards to accommodate evangelicals. Amy Sullivan, help! Please explain it to me!

Armband religion & oogedy-boogedy branch! I like it! And yeah she'll get letters. I'm sure the Focus on Family didn't lay off any of its flaks.

http://www.seekgod.ca/cnp.htm

Well, it seems to help to understand the CNP when discussing religious politics.

But Parker seems to think it's HER party. What if it's THEIR'S?

When Henry Clay and Daniel Webster got too old to lead, the Whigs embraced the Know-Nothings and tried to hang on.
The religious right is the modern day Know-Nothing Party. There are no real Republicans left. They have gone the way of the Whigs.

Gregory, you beat me to it. But this time, for once, I'd really like to hear what Amy Sullivan has to say.

A House Republican leader said that voters had rejected their ideas and that the goal should be to come up with their own ideas that the voters will like so they can get the voters back on their side.

This is the key Republican problem, they believe that there should be one set of ideas which gets votes and all other ideas should be rejected and denounced. But apparently ideas are just something that gets you elected and keeps you in power. They don't intend to actually change their basic beliefs, they just want to find a new way to convince people that these beliefs produce good ideas for government.

What has really changed over the last few years, since Katrina, is that we woke up and realized that for Republicans, it is all talk and no walk.

Ah, what a difference a few years makes. It was not so long ago that Washington Monthly blog readers were treated to Amy Sullivan whinging about how Democrats hated religion, and if we didn't make nice with white evangelicals we'd never win.

Now even the Republicans want to get rid of them.

The Southern Strategy was too successful. It was fun rattling the cages of "real Americans". There was seemingly no downside, as the election(s) of George W Bush suggested.

But you could hear the coming blowback as early as 2000. America only seems fragmented but entertainers found the core sensibility. When schoolkids are laughing at Stephen Colbert's send-up of Bill O'Reilly, its fair to say conservatives lost the war for the future.

I used to think talk radio, Fox News, and megachurches would be the downfall of this country. I was not only wrong, I completely missed the way blowhards end up torching themselves. When you lose a Kathleen Parker, you're so far gone there's no way back.

"On the substance, I think the GOP would be wise to take Parker's advice seriously."

It's obvious that the GOP is split between the bankers and the zealots but I'm not quite sure the results of the election should be a problem for the fanatics.

I mean, as far as I can tell, the McCain campaign really started to tank when the economy hit the skids. That would tend to fall on the bankers' side of the ledger.

Good column. I hope more conservative columnists wake up and push back against the fascist, religiously wrong.

Minor point: Our founding documents are secular. There is virtually nothing religious about them beyond a couple of very vague references to a deist god. Contrary to "the stupid" put out by the religiously wrong, our founding was actually, at least in part, a reaction to, not an embrace of, religious domination. Our model for government was pagan Rome and Greece, with a good measure thrown in from the Enlightenment -- especially the Scottish Enlightenment. Again, mostly a reaction to religious domination of the state. A reaction to the Church's stifling of science, free thinking, etc. etc.

But, beyond that, cheers to Parker for having the courage to defy the religio-fascism of the right.

By ALL means yes, let us allow ALL RELIGIONS to participate in our GOVERNMENT! I mean its has worked SO WELL in other places around the world hasn't it? Like the Middle East?

I saw this article, and although previous columns by Parker (I think she used to write for the Orlando Sentinel or something like that) made me want to strangle her until her eyes blew out of her head like grape jelly, I find myself now reluctantly admiring her courage. It's one thing to take on the loopy right on a single occasion, but it's something else again to keep poking them with that pointed stick. There's nothing on earth as mean as some of those holy-rolling Jesus-shouters. Well done, Ms. Parker, and I pledge my admiration will not stop as soon as we disagree, because it was honestly earned.

What Mike said. Evangelicals are just Americans like you or me. The real bad guys here are the power hungry socio-paths who stoke the worst tendencies of evangelicals and suppress the best.

For some reason, when the topic is "religion," people who hate it the most consistently substitute their own bigotry for analysis. Contrary to Kathleen Parker's predictable and unthinking reflex, the Republican party is not being hurt by "G-O-D" nor by the people who believe in him, who, just by happenstance, constitute something like 70% of the electorate.

Nor does Ms. Parker deserve anything but shunning for her association of "G-O-D" with phrases like "oogedy-boogedy," "lowest brows," and "gorillas," which is simply Archie-Bunker-style bigotry, not different in the slightest from Step-n-fetchit or jokes about Jews and pennies.

What Ms. Parker does illustrate is a disturbing, growing impulse by the anti-religious to engage in good, ol'-fashioned hate speech, only directed at Evangelicals rather than blacks, Jews, or gays. Bigotry is bigotry, and if there was anything remotely resembling balance in the modern "hate speech" parlance, Ms. Parker would be scheduled for sensitivity training.

"Ah, what a difference a few years makes. It was not so long ago that Washington Monthly blog readers were treated to Amy Sullivan whinging about how Democrats hated religion, and if we didn't make nice with white evangelicals we'd never win."

I'm not evangelical (Northeast Liberal UCC), and I love the politics here, but some of the anti-religious comments here make me cringe. So Amy ain't exactly that far off. Some on this site can probably chill a little on all the "Everyone who goes to Church is a superstitious, simple minded A-hole" thing.

When you're arguing with someone who thinks loud=right, it really doesn't matter how logical you are, does it?

Contrary to Kathleen Parker's predictable and unthinking reflex, the Republican party is not being hurt by "G-O-D" nor by the people who believe in him, who, just by happenstance, constitute something like 70% of the electorate. Posted by: Plumb Bob

I guess you were out of the country earlier this month. We had an election and whack-job extremist religion lost. And since this has become the most visible and hateful face of the Rethug party, this is why the Rethugs lost.

While the majority of Americans claim to believe in a god, the majority of Americans aren't religious. They are two different things, doncha know? (Wink.)

Dear Plumb Bob, please hold onto the Republican party, make it your own, and shun those people (and I use the word loosely) that would suggest that Sarah Palin was not the best choice for the presidency.

You are our kind of guy.

But I do congratulate Ms. Parker for accepting the Red Pill, something that Bob will never do.

"Everyone who goes to Church is a superstitious, simple minded A-hole" thing. Posted by: Jason

People like you aren't necessarily assholes, but if you believe in god you are to a degree superstitious and simple-minded.

I'd be happy to see the end of the influence of people like Limbaugh. But I agree with Boronx in that I know a lot of decent evangelicals who are let down by their current demagogues. If they had decent representation, maybe they'd be a bit less exclusionary. Huckabee comes to mind as a decent politician who happens to be an evangelical representative.... But I have to admit, the end of the right wing religious domination of radio, TV and Republican politics would be welcome.

Why don't we invite Kathleen to join the democratic party ?

This is my favorite subject. When taking into account the demise of the republican party, the religious right stood at its forefront. I'm still awestruck by the amount of power and influence they parlayed in Washington under 43. The Terry Shiavo circus was probably where they "jumped the shark."

And plumb bob, as usual with religious single-mindedness, you miss the point entirely. Parker is advocating keeping religion a private matter. So far from being hate and bigotry! It's about religious tolerance and allowing each to his/her own beliefs and not bringing religious tenets into politics. Atheists have the right to their beliefs as well as Christians, Muslims, and any other religion that comes down the pike. The problem begins when one of those religions decides that all of us must conform to his/her religious tenets. I don't see anything in her article denigrating God or religion. What I see in your response is the usual knee-jerk religious "how dare you" curtail my particular religion's right to inflict my beliefs on others. How would you feel if some fundamentalist Muslim decided your daughter needed to wear a burka in public?? No, we all need to back off and let tolerance have a chance in this country. Sadly, I remember when tolerance of other religious beliefs and the freedom to worship as you please was a given in American politics AND government. Remember, the separation of church and state?

But I agree with Boronx in that I know a lot of decent evangelicals who are let down by their current demagogues. Posted by: KLA

Define "decent." If you mean they hold down jobs, pay their taxes, don't abuse their spouse and/or children, and mow their lawns, yes they are "decent." However, if they are virulently anti-abortion, against stem cell research, pro-gun, like a "muscular" foreign policy, and think that the government needs to be organized along conservative Christian beliefs, then they are still a problem for the country culturally and socially because they tend to support politicians and policies that aren't beneficial to the nation as a whole.

However, if they hold these views but believe them to be personal choices that needn't become public policy, then they need to make this clear to their "religious" leaders.

Partker's advice is not bad, but she delivers it so uncharitably, and with such poison and clear prejudice that she weakens it to where it will be ignored. Telling people they are lowbrows does not invite them to take your advice. So Parker is a bit foolish, here. Hate to say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but it's true. And Parker is inviting hate instead of helping.

I hope more conservative columnists wake up and push back against the fascist, religiously wrong.

Most conservative columnists are fascists, too, but not the religious kind. Most conservative columnists are fascists of the military-finance-petrol-industrial type, who were happy enough to use religious fascists to win popular elections but not to share power with them. The Republican schism is between these two types of fascists.

While I agree with Parker that the GOP is in large part controlled by what are basically a bunch of hyper-religious nuts, that's not their problem and changing it won't be a solution. The GOP remains beholden to the religious right because they are the last thing holding the party afloat. The GOP has become a party of bad ideas and demonstrable failure, and that failure has finally seeped into the collective conscious of more Americans. The last 8 years has seen 2 failed wars, 2 recessions, Katrina, Enron, a myriad of political scandals too numerous to list and a republican president almost universally viewed as an idiot. In addition, the GOP still widely rejects man made global warming, evolution, financial regulation, abortion rights and a host of other ideas that mainstream Americans embrace. So I don't buy the oh so easy excuse that the GOP's failure is the fault of the religious right. Their failures are broad and deep and their entire ideology has been rejected.

Jeff II, Well it is hard to defend a lot of them a lot of the time. I try to think of it as ignorance rather than bigotry. But you make a lot of good points. In fact, after thinking about my Huckabee remark, I have to say his recent remarks comparing violence towards African-Americans vs. gays and lesbians are repugnant. I am trying to be more tolerant of fundamentalists of all stripes and religions. But you're right it's difficult. Especially since their pastors inevitably link their beliefs to their votes and since their extreme approach invariably leads to "government needs to be organized along conservative Christian beliefs." I don't know the answer to those problems. I used to have this argument with my Catholic parent on pro-choice. I'm not pro-abortion per se, I just believe abortion is a personal issue and should not be illegal based on religious tenets. Amazingly, my parent has come around to agreeing that it should be a personal choice and the Church should stay out of legislation. She still ardently believes abortion is wrong; she now believes that reducing abortions is more effectively approached through education. Frankly, I'd prefer to see fundamentalists of all religions disappear, but since they are here to stay, I'm trying to find a reasonable counter to their extremist approach. As for "virulently anti-abortion, against stem cell research, pro-gun, like a "muscular" foreign policy": although I probably come down on your side of the debate, I believe in their right to have the opposite view. Keeping in mind that percentages of under 30's who support religious intolerance are very low, I think over time the political weight of the religious right will naturally subside. Of course, this is not any consolation to all the married gay and lesbian couples in CA! Judging by this election and the current disarray in the Republican party, most people ARE moderates (gay/lesbian rights being the current exception) and do NOT want to see the likes of Palin in office. Of course, Bachmann did win her seat, so I may be very wrong.

It may be that "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar," but if it's sweetness you want, why waste perfectly good honey when antifreeze will do the job as well?

i think the religious "values" that parker attacks are tied up to southern "values."

obviously, the gop CAN'T cut dixie loose, it's the only part of the country they won this cycle....but to become a national party they NEED to cut it loose....

math is hard

The GOP may need even more than just dumping the religious nuts because the Democrats seem to have realized that 2nd amendment rights are THEIR achilles heel. Drop gun bans and they take the west. (You telling me NEVADA isn't hard core Democrat? They legalized prostitution for pete's sake! They're total pervs! Democrats!)

The religious loons can drop away, but they must attract others.

What voting blocs are available to rifle?
Environmentalists. DLC resistance to giving up on being pro-business will hamper the green movement in the Democratic party.

Bankroll oil companies to sincerely go green. They can squander billions very inefficiently but still produce results that environmentalists will be grateful for. Reward wealthy landowners by creating massive new national parks by buying private land up. Worked for Teddy Roosevelt. The Green Party might also start to become less hostile.

Welfare.
The system is owned by Democrats, but injecting efficiency in delivery of service could make for grateful recipients. Crackdown on fraud would make the truly needy grateful as well as angry tax payers. Get minimal health care through quickly. Take the hit giving Dems credit so the Dems can overreach. Ridicule them when they feel forced to back BS like aroma therapy, acupuncture, and homeopathic therapy. Health care will be forgotten and these quacks will quickly become a Democratic embarrassment.
Do welfare WELL. It's win-win.

Grad school.
Fund it.
These people will be making the 6 figures whose income you want to cut taxes on. You can be pro-education but no one with a high school diploma is getting this aid. It's kind of like a "donut hole" in education funding. It doesn't help our base much, but paints you as pro-education. "Elitists" might bite.

Call me.
We'll talk.

From Kathleen Parker's column:

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

Frankly, I'd prefer to see fundamentalists of all religions disappear, but since they are here to stay, I'm trying to find a reasonable counter to their extremist approach.

Perhaps I'm employing selective memory and I was young at the time, but I seem to remember a greater degree of religious tolerance, at least amongst mainline Protestant, Catholic and Jewish "leaders" up through the 1960s. I think Kennedy's election helped a great deal. Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims just didn't figure into the mix. The former because they have always been anti-intellectual and the latter because their numbers were so insignificant until very recently.

As for "virulently anti-abortion, against stem cell research, pro-gun, like a "muscular" foreign policy": although I probably come down on your side of the debate, I believe in their right to have the opposite view. Keeping in mind that percentages of under 30's who support religious intolerance are very low, I think over time the political weight of the religious right will naturally subside. Of course, this is not any consolation to all the married gay and lesbian couples in CA! Posted by: KLA

I certainly hope so. As we become more and more a nation of "mongrels," I can't see anything else being possible.

Not to put too happy a face on things, I think Prop. 8 was a speed bump and aberration as to where things are headed.

I haven't seen any of those great maps done after the 2004 election that showed just how "purple" if not "blue" the nation was trending. As smaller cities become larger and rural areas with no employment become progressively emptier, the trend will be for a more open if not exactly cosmopolitan society.

While there are a bunch of reasons the GOP is in decline, Parker's right that "armband religion" is doing it's bit to kill the GOP. That Faustian Bargain was made and the fruits of it are rotting on the vine.

Hard for me to understand why Parker's apostasy makes such a wave. Cal Thomas said the same thing in his first post-election column, and he spent his warly public career suckling at the Moral Majority teat.

Jeff II, I agree that tolerance (religious, racial and otherwise) seems to be on the rise, particularly among the under 30 crowd.

Unfortunately, the remaining lunatic fringes seem to respond to this by becoming even more extreme.

I honestly expect (but hope I am wrong about this) a major increase in violent attacks by both the racists and the religious right (overlapping but not identical groups), up to and possibly including something on the scale of Oklahoma City.

Ah, there's the NYT's new conservative columnist. Just what the Gray Lady needs; a rightie who isn't a lunatic. Perfect to replace that hollowed-out palooka William Kristol.

What is it about the word "Republican" that keeps thinking people in that party?

We have conservative in the Democratic party, too.

She and those who think as she does should just go ahead and abandon that word to the fanatical fundies and re-register as Democrats, where they might actually have a ghost of a chance to influence public policy.

Can you throw God under a bus so big that he can't lift it?

bakho: The Christian right overlooks the diversity of opinion and beliefs among practicing Christians.

Exactly. Legitimate Christianity isn't entirely comprised of Christianist zealots, no matter how loudly they scream that this is so.

Plumb Bob: Bigotry is bigotry ...

Blah, blah, blah... I love it how it "oppresses" radicals if they're limited in their ability to oppress others. This is the kind of whack-jobiness that Parker is referring to.

Clue for you: Parker isn't being anti-Christian, she's being anti-asshole. If you want to call that "bigotry", well, that says a lot about your sympathies, doesn't it?

catherineD: But Parker seems to think it's HER party. What if it's THEIR'S?

Half is, and half is. This is why liberals are breaking out the popcorn. :)

vite: Telling people they are lowbrows does not invite them to take your advice.

Parker isn't talking to them; she's talking to the rational moderates about them.

Not a Republican but I'm in love with Kathleen Parker.

I stand with KP. What's the big fuss about ? The "Jesus lovers" are a significant part of the problem-how does one get around that given ?

Obama ran one well-executed strategic campaign. McCain fumbled and lost face as much as I planned to vote for him.

You guys can't complain about Biden--you have 4-8 years of material that will be delivered daily to your cyber doorstep. What you see is what you get. Give me a man who rams his shoes in his mouth for all the world to see over the warped serpents any day. Maybe a little anti-Irish-Catholic smug smog in the air ?

And KP will get around to writing that McCain et. al picked Palin because she is pretty hot as far as national female politicians go. She's get her talking points down over the next 4 years making her about as bright as W., his father, and Reagan. I'm okay with figure-heads. I'll take any of those three over Slick Willie.

Palin will neutralize Hillary way longer than people expect. The GOP trotted her out at a good time. The election was all but lost. Palin offered some hope she could seduce us to swamp lust for security.

Biden is too Obama what Cheney has been to Bush with a better twist. Obama will be allowed to inspire while kept from going over the top. So far, it looks like he's surrounding himself with fairly decent folks though why tap Hillary for State Dept or bother to include Kerry ? Let's pull in Hagel, Bob Kerry, James Webb, Colin Powell, maybe Kay Baily Hutchinson....leaving others to identify the blacks and latinos and a few more women. Keep Gates in for a good year or two.

Okay, you guys pick people for the Fed, etc.

So, we don't get to look at Palin everyday. Biden will keep us laughing and taken seriously. Michelle Obama and her girls will grow on us. Worse folks to have in our living rooms for next 4 years. We'll be hunkering down anyway.

Could be worse. Kathleen is spot on. And Jonah surprised me with his whining.......