Traister’s line of questioning conflates race and gender as two groups equivalent in their needs and demands for sensitivity. It’s exactly this type of oversimplification that feminists may celebrate as “provocative” but everyone else finds discrediting.

Even though we know that men and women don’t “need” each other, all of our lives we are pressured to come together and be in relationship to each other in new and old social roles that we ourselves didn't create. Our attempts at being together, personally and professionally, are often frustrated, subverted by bad information, and sexual and emotional undercurrents. This is true even of people graced with ample social ease.

Men and women have more need to blow off steam about each other—to release pressure—and I can see where Maddox’s humor meets that need for a lot of people. Emotionally, psychologically, and sexually, men and women will always be close to each other whereas there will always be a lot more distance between racial groups into which we can insert “sensitivity.”

Thanks for the remembrance of the guy.

I too was shocked at the charges against him, and wanted to know more about the circumstances of his arrest. I wish there had been more reporting about that, and I hope someone does a more comprehensive profile of him.

A sad ending to someone that we should properly recall for the challenge he put to us all, the decency of his indecency.

Thank you, naked guy.

No one is stopping these ex-generals from going out and campaigning for opposition politicians (Democrats) in the House and Senate to bring the regime under control.

Check out the Robert Dreyfuss article over at the American Prospect this month titled, "Vice Squad" about Dick Cheney and the secretive Office of the Vice President. It goes into the best detail that I have seen yet of who the players are in the executive branch that wield the disproportionate power of the OVP—hard information to get since the OVP won't even reveal who works in the office. I won't quote anything for fear of being pummeled for taking something out of context.

I have to ask reading this—where then, are the liberal and Progressive American and Israeli jews that are stepping up in an organized way to represent themselves and their ideas, and to combat their misrepresentation by hard-liners and zealots?

Among American jews of all political strips, is it the difference between belief systems and values as expressed by Ms. Goldberg, or is it the difference between "hard" and "soft" support for Israel?

Speaking as an American citizen, Marc Pengryffyn get's it right. Credit where credit is due...America does bear an inordinate amount of responsibility. And American voters deserve the most opprobrium of all...

Face it, if you're speaking up for American voters who reelected GW, then you're an apologist.

If it doesn't earn me a visit from the National Security Agency, maybe the terrorists who target American civilian voters have correctly appraised who their enemies are after all....

As one politcian once said to a reporter in Texas, "If you think these guys are bad, you should see their constituents"...

Damn Scotland...

Thank you Salon, for finally reflecting the essential struggles of my existence as reflected in the light, life and times of dear Brad.

I wrote earlier in the letters on this article that I thought that Michelle Goldberg might have reported that Lieberman voted for the Bush tax cuts. The techies have fixed the problem with the archives and I should say now for the sake of accuracy that she didn't.

Didn’t Michelle Goldberg write an article not too long ago called “Jolting Joe” in which she reported that some observers see Lieberman as “a major source of incoherence in the Democratic Party.”

I also recollect that Goldberg reported that he had voted for the Bush tax cuts, whereas Shapiro’s article says he voted against them. I went to search the archives for Michelle’s article and got an error message. If anybody else that confirm that—either from the archives or another authoritative source, please share.

I have a “Dump Lieberman” sticker on my car, and it’s not solely about the war for me, and I resent reporters (as another did this morning on NPR) trying to turn the Connecticut Senate contest into an over-simplified one-note referendum on the war. Lieberman voted for bankruptcy “reform” and he told the Democrats to shut up and not criticize Bush for fear of damaging his credibility, after having jumped on the Clinton impeachment bandwagon in the 90s.

I used to think of Joe as Zell Miller of the North, but I noticed on the Dubai Ports Deal he bucked the Republicans as well as the Democrats to stand by his man Bush to support a state-owned company of a state that sent us two 9/11 hijackers, holds a population that is deeply anti-American, and that is boycotting Israel (imagine all the ports on the East Coast of the US being owned by a company that boycotts Israel).

And I deeply resent Lieberman’s Republican-style personal attacks on his critics, like when he indicts them for spewing “hatred,” instead of addressing the issues. There’s real reasons people are pissed at Joe (besides the war), and the reporter should be holding his feet to the fire about them.

Shapiro casually discards Lamont’s speech (“studded with Howard Dean-like rhetoric”), while breathlessly quoting Lieberman hack-talk at length (“It is something that speaks to this moment in our politics…”)

Shapiro’s losing credibility here. For a much better article on Lieberman, go into the archives and read Michelle Goldberg’s.

Not normally the kind of thing I'm interested in, but I was anyway.

Unfortunately, the career of a writer can be as tenuous and long-suffering as that of an actor.