RE: vegetarian spider--Fascinatingly cool lil critter.. Thing 2 saw the photo and said, "Is it eating the plant? Well, that doesn't scare me."

Is that you in the cage? it could be Frank.

In recent weeks I've actually gotten a couple of folks to stop with the Hitler comparisons with the simple reminder that Hitler persecuted liberals, academics, homosexuals . . .

Hitler is a pretty popular figure to use to circumvent actual discussion. It does double duty-- it distracts one pole from engaging the issue by giving them a widely hated effigy to pound on; and the other pole is distracted by saying, "NUH-UH! THAT AIN'T RIGHT!"

In the meantime, the bail out fails, health insurance reform languishes, domestic spying programs continue, torture of foreign prisoners continues...

I'd be a bit more sympathetic for your point of view if you didn't come across so selectively blind-- or perhaps mute-- to the negligence of the Left.

Oh, the Left isn't particularly negligent. The Left isn't even in power. The center/center-right, which is the Democratic Party, certainly is negligent, viz not dealing with Patriot Act, GITMO, etc. (Oddly, they've mostly been negligent about not cleaning up conservative messes.)

I get focused on the Right because I've been hearing all my life, and continue to hear, sweeping absolutist claims of moral superiority an true patriotism from them. All while seeing the same bs, the same lies and misdirections and hypocrisies that entire conservative electoral careers and media fortunes have been built on criticizing. (See Glenn Beck taking his domain name claims to an international arbitration body for a recent example.)

The true Left, such as it is in America, is just as absolutist, but they are a tiny, tiny minority. Liberal-progressives as a whole are far too pragmatic to make absolutist claims, though as individuals, we cross that line all time onesie-twosie.

And finally...

The true Left, such as it is in America, is just as absolutist, but they are a tiny, tiny minority.

Is this like the True Faith? Very small, very sincere... but ultimately RIGHT!

No matter how many people they fail to convince.

Scary.

Note that I am not a Leftist, except by American standards. My opinions about labor unions are mixed and uneasy, I'm largely in favor of free trade, and I'm far more interested in fiscal conservatism than in Keynesian economics. Which I say the true Left, I mean Chomsky, for example.

I think your rejection of the terminology elides over a very deliberate and successful Republican strategy dating to at least the days of Reagan of redefining the center far to the right. Much of what is taken seriously today as mainstream political discourse was laughable far right lunacy in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

As for your comments on Obama, well, yes. I suppose my take is that incremental improvement -- which there has been under Democratic rule -- beats the snot out of continuous degradation -- which there was under Republican rule. Given the Democratic tendency to cavil, compromise and be swayed by conservative pressure, it's about the best we can do right now. At least we're moving in the right direction, for the first time in almost a decade.

(And yes, note the irony of me making sweeping claims about liberal-progressives not making sweeping claims.)

The center/center-right, which is the Democratic Party

Nah. I mean, I've heard this touted in liberal progressive circles, but you need to face facts: popularly, when someone says "Left" in a discussion about American politics, they mean "the Democratic Party."

America is not Europe; I am not inclined to accept your terminology. If we were discussing European politics, I would accept that Left means something different than how I've used it above.

Also, I note you didn't actually address the point I made. You made excuses for the side about whom you're (at worst) ambivalent towards.

Obama is continuing Bush's transgressions. After years of observing Democrats in office, I knew they were ineffective; I had hoped they'd at least be earnest. The Democrats are systematically dismantling their one great call to political fame: their purist, ideological stance.

Now, we know (or those of us who are paying attention know): the Democrats are just as crass, just as hypocritical as the GOP. It's Chicago politics on a national scale.

Oddly, they've mostly been negligent about not cleaning up conservative messes.

When the trash man doesn't come to pick up the trash, he gets fired, no matter who put the trash on the corner.