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I think that you are patriotic Americans..... I am a patriotic American too…but many of your fellow travelers are not as evidenced by the character of liberal protests and public comment regarding the American military, foreign and defense policy etc. And it seems leftists only become patriotic when a Democratic president resides in the White House. I support the constitution. I support second amendment rights as well as first amendment rights. I think that it is necessary and good that a court interpret these amendments, but I am as appalled by the notion of a free speech zone as I was by DC's handgun ban. I'm angry about the recent encroachment against the fourth amendment, and the steady erosion of the tenth. It affects blue states as much as red ones. I don't care for drugs, but you tell me how the interstate commerce clause empowers the federal government to keep my neighbor from growing and then smoking a plant without leaving his back yard. …… The fact that you don’t capitalize the Constitution speaks for itself in terms how you view it. I support abortion rights, but I think that the opposite position is also very reasonable. If abortion is murder, then there is no question that it should be banned at the federal level. If abortion is simply a medical procedure, then it is tyranny for the government to forbid it. Either way, it would seem that the question should be decided on the federal level. Yet, if we can't reach a consensus about something as basic as whether abortion is murder or an operation, how can we choose to forbid or protect it? I think abortion is a federal-level question that for the moment must unfortunately be decided at the state level. …so are you saying abortion is beyond your “pay grade?” ..a pretty common liberal reaction. I am a liberal. I don't think Obama is more tyrannical or arrogant than past presidents. I think a government health-care option would be good for Americans. I don't care that Bush wasn't eloquent, and I also don't think that intellect in the narrow sense is the most important quality for a president. On the other hand I think that the Iraq war was a catastrophic mistake that America won't live down in my lifetime. It weakened America financially, diplomatically and militarily. So, I am very much a liberal. Still, I think we have some common ground. False (Greek, Roman?) columns, teleprompters, “it’s a gift, Harry, “we won, get over it,” and“its Bush’s fault” is not arrogant? I'd like to say something a bit more personal. I'm an academic. We spend a lot of our lives thinking about very abstract, technical things. This makes academics prone to elaboration and understatement in our area of expertise, and simultaneously to oversimplification and overconfidence outside of it. We can be short on common sense, but we can have counterinuitive insight in technical matters. It takes academics, entrepreneurs, and factory workers to make a plane fly, and it takes all of us to make the right decisions for America. I think that anti-intellectualism marginalizes an important part of American society, and I think it's destructive. To those who say that small businessmen have nothing of value to say about the US economy, I say you're wrong, and to those who say that academic economists have nothing to say about the US economy, I also say you're wrong. ….I too, am an “academic” but do not categorize myself in that context nor employ it as a label to explain my shortcomings, attributes or worldview. But I have seen that movie before with my liberal academic associates. Please leave comments if you'd like. I'll try to respond tomorrow…. I’d be interested in seeing them. We, Americans, conservative and liberal, need to figure out our own compromises, because our media and our politicians sure as taxes won't do it for us. Like it or not, we're in it together….Your liberal media is sure trying to do it for us.