Neither party appears to be able to absorb the truth that the majority of Americans desire a centrist type of leadership in their government. Deviation too far to either end of the spectrum will eventually be punished at the polls.

Quite true. But I guess I'm not in the majority (actually, I've known that all along). I think we need a "third way" if I may coopt an ancient phrase. Ah, well.

See any baby squirrels today?

What I wanna know is, since the prez replaced Rummy with Bob Gates, The Top Aggie, does that mean that John Kerry will now have to say: "If you're uneducated -- or go to A&M -- you could get stuck in Iraq.

Now now now, it's A JOKE!

Jim, I have a hard time believing that you identify with either the Far Left or the Far Right to the extent that you'd like one of them to exercise complete power over our government. That's really the point I was trying to make. (But if you do, please don't tell me. There are some things better left unspoken. ;-)

Jimmy, I'm not one of those Aggei, Aggey, um...A&M grads who can't take a joke.

By the way, are you still starting your own car in the mornings? ;-)

No... the problem for me is, at least politically speaking, I believe very strongly in what turns out to be a mix of things from both "sides." And, of course, I think everyone else should too!

See, I think you just agreed with my point (at least, with the way it rattles around in my head, even if it tumbles out differently in the written word). Both sides have ideas and values worth considering and adopting. It's the "my way or the highway" crap on every single issue that I think most voters get tired of.

Well, I do, anyway.

Yes, I did agree with you. Right?

I tend to agree with what Jim said, which I think has been been decided to be in agreement with what you were on about. However, I'd like to put a finer point on it by suggesting that there's a fine distinction between selecting from both left and right sides of the menu and riding the fence.

The latter is simply fine tuning the our government to match our personal belief system.

The former accomplishes nothing, as we've seen. As polititicians from both sides become desperate to disguise what they really stand for, they strive to give the appearance of standing in the middle, while in fact standing for nothing.

If you'll forgive my taking His words somewhat out of context, "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." And instead vote... oh, wait. We don't have a viable third party, do we?*

And speaking of the reverse peristalsis shuffle, I swear every time I hear Nancy Pelosi open her mouth I become nauseated. Spirit of cooperation, my eye. Cox & Forkum have got it right, I think.

* Sure, I used to think it was cute to vote a straight Libertarian ticket as a means of protest, but in the end there's a lot of lunacy on their menu that I'm not willing to spoon on to my own plate.

...and I'd like to put a finer point on my finer point by pointing out that my statement "there's a fine distinction between selecting from both left and right sides of the menu and riding the fence" is exactly the reverse of what I meant to write, thus rendering the rest of my commentary nonsense. Fence riding should have been the former (bad); menu selections should have been the latter (good).

I really have got to start making use of that Preview button...

The scary thing is that I knew what you meant, even if your typing fingers didn't.

Previews are overrated.

Huh?

I'm channeling Destry: "my thinkin' machine works kinda slow." Love the scripture quote though, Foo. That's it exactly!

I'm sure there's a reason why we have no viable third party in our country, but I'm not politically astute enough (not that lack of astuteness is a good excuse) to understand why.

"Neither party appears to be able to absorb the truth that the majority of Americans desire a centrist type of leadership in their government."

I think you may be right there. Not that I follow these things. I'm smugly oblivious except for when the NZ newspapers splatter your mid-terms all over their pages - unheard of usually but not this year. Something to do witha game of rummy or something.