Gee, Mr. McKinnon: Do you really want to give up so quickly on conventional wisdom? Do you really think Karl Rove would actually approve of anything a Democratic administration would do? Don't worry: The world hasn't shifted on its axis, and the magnetic field has not reversed polarity. Trust me: follow the money - or in this case, the potential indictments. Try this model: Karl's kissin' Democratic behind as fast as he can ahead the possibility of being hauled into Congress to testify in the Justice Department attorney firings, etc., hoping Joe Lieberman or some "reasonable" facsimile will get up and, Scooter-Libby-apologist-like, recall the time Karl shoveled his car out of a snowdrift. There: that should bring us all safely back down to the planet we're familiar with.

McKinnon, you are dead on. We need to make the very best of this current lovefest. Politics has evolved from the art of making your plan look brilliant to the sport of making the other guy's plan look flawed. My Bulldogs lost on Saturday but the sun rose yesterday, unexpectedly. Let'a all get past the partison stuff and make this place great again.

???

Get real. It was exacty the right time for Bush to make good on his promise to be a "compassionate conservative," to bring a new civility and bi-partisanship to Washington, etc. The message was right on at exactly the right time. Just too bad the messenger was full of hot air. And the country and thousands upon thousands of it young men and women paid the ultimate price.

Mr Eller and joemich,
I hate to be a naysayer but, I think both of you are right on. America has watched this group's tactics too long to believe they've changed their spots overnight. At the earliest opportunity, the smile will widen to a glare that blinds one from observing the knife being shoved into one's back.

What the $%@! are you talking about, saying the time wasn't right in 2001 for changing the tone in Washington? On the heels of a very close election, the time was more than right.

You're missing something huge here: in interviews (60 Mins) and addresses Obama has taken pains to acknowledge that responsibility for the economic crisis is held by both parties and to not point fingers strictly at the Republicans. Contrast that with Pelosi's speech while trying to get TARP approved. The GOP is more willing to support him because he's not putting them on the defensive. This is smart and, after the "vast right wing conspiracy" days of the Clintons or the inept bungling of W, incredibly refreshing.

Uh, how about after 911? When the country WAS united?

Mr. Bush had every opportunity to do the right thing but he did not. He squandered both political and economic capitals he inherited. He was blinded by partisanship and Dick cheney and failed to grow our country. Consequently, we are experiencing a very bad recession right now. Is he even aware that he achieved the very goal behind 9/11 for the enemy? Mr. Obama is going to need help from all of us as he attempts to dig us out of this ditch.

Obama deserves credit for acting like an adult (it's sad that that has become a rarity among politicians) and placing pragmatism ahead of ideaology (he could adopt the slogan 'Country First').

Many repubs deserve some credit for ending their constant campaigning for a few weeks and at least appear to be giving a good faith effort to support Obama. However, let's keep in mind that now is the easiest time to support the president right after a sizeable victory in which even many of the people who did not vote for him are happy about the history significance of Obama's win. If this feeling exists 3 months from now then a corner may have been turned.

Dear Mark - last knew you at Hill Jr. High in Denver - and your subsequent career in the GOP has confounded me, but
It's been fun lately to watch you gamely recasting yourself as a worldly-wise pundit, after having been partially responsible for the dubious achievement of putting George W in the White House - the man most Americans, present and future - Republicans included- will consider the worst President in U.S. history, and responsible for over 3,000 unecesssary combat deaths. Have you publicly admitted your colossally wrongheaded, cynical and ultimately disastrous support of this administration? Maybe I missed it.

I recall 2000 and 2001. In 2000 the Democrats acted like 2 year olds who had their lollipop stolen. The screamed they whined they sued, they did everything they could to try to win the election in the courts and pouted when they lost in the courts.

After 9/11 they were very quiet. They made the minimum acceptable noise and backed the Afghanistan invasion. But they were just biding their time. After a couple of weeks of fighting RW Apple brought out the "quagmire" label and stuck it on Afghanistan. Unfortunately for him, Khandahar fell that day. That was quickly stuffed down the memory hole.

Then there was the question of how to deal with Iraq. Everyone on both sides of the aisle was certain that Saddam would try to reconstitute his WMD given a chance. There was no argument about that at the time. But we had had NO intelligence about Iraq since Clinton let Saddam kick the inspectors out. After 9/11 he was considered to unpredictable and dangerous to leave in power.

But when things started to get difficult in Iraq, all of the sudden the Democrats had a massive onset of amnesia and claimed that they were fooled by the crafty Bush.

Pretty soon we were in the Chimpy Mchaliburton zone and Democrats were suddenly discovering that they had actually opposed the war that they voted for.

After that the two year olds were back in charge. We started hearing that Bush had arranged for the WTC to be blown up as a pretext to start a war in Iraq. Simple effective talking points. If you repeat them over and over, people start to believe them. Especially if they are predisposed to believe them. So the Democrats in government, the reporters in the MSM and the howling mob in the street discovered that Bush was responsible fo everything that was wrong with the world.

This went on for practically the entire eight years of the Bush administration.

And now you're impressed that Obama is not getting the same? Maybe it's because the Republicans are grown ups and can accept that they lost the election. They're just not given to chants, paper mache puppets and name calling.

I'm sorry, the Republicans are grownups? Jeez, look around. There's plenty of bad behavior and partisan nonsense on both sides, and last time I listened, hate radio was dominated by Republicans who do nothing BUT name call. And yes, Democrats have been childish and churlish as well. That's the whole point of this election: partisanship needs to be OVER. We have problems, and the world will belong to the people who can calm down and concentrate on solving them.