Jim M's report was good and stuck to the facts. I think neither you nor Arianna did all that well as commentators, though she scored better on points. Both of you obsessed about Israel when the issue is Iran.

Indeed, Glenn, you seemed to make the opposite point of what you were trying to say: If Israel is a nuclear country (probable, but not actually a fact that real journalists can use without qualification) then it has behaved responsibly. Its refusal to use nukes when taking military action against those who want to wipe it off the map shows intelligence and restraint. These are not words I hear from you on this issue.

Meanwhile, re Madmen: When arrogant and reality-challenged Bush/Cheney was in power, they invaded two countries, unsuccessfully. There's no question that Iran's current leadership is insane. The alternate to Ahmadinejad is someone only a little less insane. To claim that Iran would behave with intelligence and restraint when the person with his finger on the button is in the Saddam Hussein/Gaddhafi/Idi Amin class of genocidal madmen is just foolish.

Iran's traditional enemy is Iraq. You say that Iran hasn't "invaded" anyone for several centuries, but that ignores the millions of Iranian deaths at the hands of Iraq in the last few decades. If Iran gets nukes, they will be aimed at Bagdad, not Jerusalem.

That the Post's editors disagree with their columnists doesn't bother me; in many ways, having different voices is good. It's disingenuous of them to wag their editorial fingers at "Hollywood" while ignoring their own apologists, but that's a different laugh.

Your point about how the Post is soft on crime in other areas is well taken. If the crime has something to do with sex -- other people having sex, not one of their own -- then it's bad. If the crime has to do with sphincter-clenching fear, it's good.

Too many on the far right don't think with their brains. Scooter Libby's crimes are greater than Roman Polanski's crimes, but that excuses neither.

Without transparency, anybody can say anything, and they usually do. When pictures and first hand accounts are suppressed, the worst rumors take hold.

The Bush-Era torture and mishandling of the Iraq War are bad enough. Democrats rolling over yet again on the amoral demands of the far right is bad enough. The consequences include institutionalizing lies and fears. This happened with the Kennedy Assassination and 9/11, and will happen with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

But the price of finding those contributions is increasingly high in terms of time and energy and I'm determined to reverse that trend.

"Nobody comes here anymore. It's too crowded." -- Yogi Berra

Yeah, sometimes you're a victim of your own success and the signal-to-noise ratio decreases even as the raw numbers of valid comments increases. My only advice: find your own comfort level. I think it's great that you hang out in the comments section (not everyone does), but you can't let maintenance distract you from what you consider important.

Research Isaac Newton sometime...

I always get suspicious of arguments made when straw men are dangling, such as Durbin's assertion that banks are, "still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill." You ameliorate such stark rhetoric at the end by pointing out, "This is hardly unique to the banking industry." You're talking about amount given to Democrats vs. Republicans, but the principle is still true: People who have lots of money are willing to buy politicians to keep it.

If everyone who is called "the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill" in this column was actually the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill, we'd have massive gridlock, the minority party would be calling the shots, no major bills would ever get passed, we'd still be in a financial mess, failed institutions would be subject to cosmetic reform and a staggeringly unpopular Congress would be paying more attention to raising money for the next election than to the people who elected them.

Oh.... wait....

The thousands of people marching in Washington couldn't have been important, otherwise the conservative news media would have been covering it 25/8 and Glenn Beck would be whipping people into a frenzy. (Not literally.) If a march isn't proclaimed "the most important political movement since Prohibition" than how are we non-underwear clad news junkies supposed to know when it's real or not?

Gosh.

Or maybe the Cheeto eaters deserve kudo. We, which is to say they, don't hide behind anonymous sources. We wear our blogs on our sleeves. (Not literally.) And, for the record, I'm wearing underwear but also outerwear.

True, Obama's inaction on gay rights is a knock on him, and you can't say it's too early in his administration when he's already done enough to earn a Nobel Peace Prize. Will the populist uprising for gay rights make more difference than the Fox "News" created marches of a few weeks before? One can only hope.

Aside: At least Wolf Blitzer is standing up so we can see his trousers. What are all those Fox anchors actually wearing behind their desk. The mind boggles. (Not literally.)