Cross-posted at Kos

Everytime I turn on the television or read the newspaper, there is some pundit/journalist talking about how the democratic party can get back into the game by understanding some invented class of Americans: South Park Conservatives, Nascar Dads, or some other invented category of (primarily red-state) Americans. David Brooks has basically made a career of making caricatures of the South and mid-west-not to mention the effete liberals that apparently populate the whole of the north-east and west coasts. The lastest article in this vein is Matt Bai's King of the Hill Democrats where he explains how according to Mike Easley (my own governor) Democrats need to understand King of Hill viewers.

More Ranting Below

I fondly remember the days when I thought Pat Buchanan was a member of crazy wing of the Republican party. His latest commentary is on the Bush administration delusions about American power...

www.amconmag.com :

North Carolina has been trying to get Dell put a factory in our state. The process of getting a new factory built illustrates the greed of corporations like Dell and the dilemma faced by states who want to get more jobs, but are faced with increasingly impossible demands from corporations (in Dell's case no taxes for 20 years). I want to juxapose the recent articles in NC with the laudatory one from the NY Times.

Dell does what others have given up :

Contrast this description with Dell's demands below the fold.

I was watching Bill Moyer's NOW last night and heard Sister Joan talk about the values voters. She talked about the contradiction in saying you were pro-life when you didn't want your taxes going to inner city schools where a child that wasn't aborted would be raised. She described the pro-lifers as simply pro-birth because they didn't care about the quality of life of the child after birth. It was a great interview and she said many of things we all grumble about the values people. Here's her article it is worth considering...

Yes, but what about the rest of us?
By Joan Chittister, OSB

Down deep we all know that we did not, in this particular political exercise, see the fundamental ideals of the American public -- respect for differences, separation of church and state, the common good, and justice for all -- in full sway. We did see ideology at its most punishing, smothering and narrow worst.

The fact is that what we saw is what extremism looks like, what cultural evolution looks like, what fear looks like, what religion run amuck looks like. We saw radical right fundamentalist religion pitted against the most shameless definitions of secular liberalism as weak, immoral and irresponsible. It was the battle of two one-eyed monsters writ large. No nuances. No common ground. No common sense. No real evidence...