I appreciate your point of view, and you are probably right. The tide has turned.

ON THE OTHER HAND . . . it is exactly this kind of talk that has doomed liberal efforts for the last 30 years. Liberals play fair, and try to be gentile about it, and it gets us burned every time. We elect a Democratic president in 1992, relax, and then next thing you know, there's Newt Gingrich and his odious Contract With America.

Republicans don't care about reversing the tide. They care about winning elections, no matter how they do it. So while Democrats stand around and talk about momentum Republicans are looking at the scoreboard and trying to figure out how they can torture the rules and pressure the referees to go their way.

Republicans quit when their enemies are dead and in the ground. If then. Democrats quit as soon as the tide has turned.

That's why Democrats can still lose this thing. We need a lot less "we've already won" articles and more "what the f---, conservatives still have a pulse!?" articles.

The argument that impeachment should be off the table because it offers no political benefits to Democrats is a truly offensive argument.

Presidents should never be impeached for political reasons. They should be impeached because they broke the law. Bush's eavesdropping program is clearly illegal, and the administration has as good as admitted that it has not complied with FISA law. Many White House officials are in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer Congressional subpoenas. This also is a crime. If I did that, I would be in jail. How does Harriet Meyers get away with being above a law I have to abide by?

There is a grave danger in not impeaching Bush. The danger is that the next president will see what Bush got away with, and be tempted to do it again. I wouldn't put too much stock in Obama. Obama may be a good guy, but it would take a saint to resist the temptation to abuse this power again. It is the job of the people to make certain that politicians are not so tempted.

Our country could have been a monarchy had George Washington sought to be king. We may never have a leader with Washington's restraint ever again. Let's not fool ourselves. Bush needs to be impeached because he broke the law. It is shameful for anyone to think politics has anything to do with it.

The problem with the NBA isn't just officiating. It's the free throw itself. It is not unusual for a team who scores 100 points in a night to get 20 of those on the free throw line. That means 20% of scoring in a typical NBA game comes from penalties.

What other sport allows referees to basically put points on the board? The closest thing is the penalty shot in soccer, which only rarely results in a score. In football, those long pass interference penalties in which the ref would spot the ball at the one yard line for a push off in the end zone also comes to mind, but the NFL fixed that problem by making most pass interference calls 15 yards and a first down instead.

But in basketball, especially in the NBA, foul calls put many, many points on the board, and often make the difference in a game. Fouls are the nature of the beast, I'm afraid, since basketball is supposed to be a "non-contact" sport, but at least in the college game it doesn't seem so intrusive.

Teams shouldn't be getting more than 10-15 points a night from the charity stripe. Then what the refs do wouldn't matter as much. How do you do this? I have no idea, but that is what it will take to keep referees out of the game.

Gary's answer is certainly pragmatic, but that doesn't make it right. I think I can safely say that if what LW's boss was doing was kidnapping babies and selling them for profit Gary would retract his answer entirely. It really, really matters what the abuses were, and how bad they are.

Gary's maxim, help people get what they want, is completely amoral. If what people want is morally wrong, you can't help them. In fact, I don't see how this maxim helps at all. Anyone can see that helping your associate get what he wants is perfectly fine as long as it is moral to do so. Gary points out shiny cars. Since it is not intrinsically immoral to own a shiny car, there is no harm in helping someone get one.

If an "abuse" is a minor one, say, stealing office supplies, LW might be justified in keeping his mouth shut since losing his own job is a much bigger wrong than a few pens and highlighters. With a major abuse, the real question is who is getting hurt, and how much hurt is there? And: if the abuse is found out, could everybody end up getting fired? If the abuse is large enough that heads would roll, then LW is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, so he might as well go ahead and do the right thing.

One further point: the fact that he was reprimanded leads me to believe the abuses were serious. The guiltier you are, the more fiercely you tend to lash out.