Perhaps our biggest problem is not that we have elected a good, old-fashioned Liberal as our President. Perhaps our biggest problem is that we have elected an incompetent Liberal as our President.

This incompetence is especially worrisome as we face the fear, if not yet the reality, of Great Depression II.

At least our people in Washington are doing something, which is more than can be said for the leaders in Europe.

Those European leaders, by the way, who called on America to close the detention facility for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, are probably not going to lift a finger to help us deal with the bad guys upon closing the facility.

Outrage grows over the use of bailout money by the executives at insurance giant A.I.G., including the use of many millions of that money for bonuses for the very executives whose bad decisions got them, and us, into the mess we are in.

Massachusetts officials continue to wrestle with the contradictions that will, in the end, make their universal health plan fail (unless they make significant changes).

Jay Cost has a response to Ruy Teixeira's prediction of a growing "Progressive" America.

The actor and activist Ron Silver has died at age 62. I always liked his work in films like Reversal of Fortune, and I met him once during the New Hampshire primary campaign in 1996. By all accounts, he was a good guy and a patriotic American who thought long and hard about the issues facing the country. While he started his career as an activist on the solidly Liberal side of the equation, he became a bit more Conservative over the years, backing George W. Bush for reelection in 2004, mainly due to Bush's stance on fighting terrorism. He will be missed.