What services other than sexual contact are lawful to give away, but not lawful to sell? The ones I can think of are voting and, to some extent, governmental decision-making (e.g., bribery is outlawed). In the latter category, however, the prohibition of selling is incomplete to the extent that government officials are salaried.

What other examples are there?

Those who are most bent out of shape about where Bill Clinton's penis has been include a hell of a lot of men from the party of Larry Craig, Ted Haggard and Mark Foley. What does that suggest?

that, if his Mormon faith conflicts with his ambition, Romney won't drop Mormonism like a used condom?

If Senator McCain indeed "respect[s] anyone who gets the nomination of the Democrat Party", perhaps he can show that respect by avoiding that McCarthyite slur.

Fred Thompson has been quoted as saying that Roe v. Wade was "fabricated from whole cloth". This would be an appropriate time to ask whether Thompson believes that the precursor of Roe--Griswold v. Connecticut--was wrongly decided and should be overruled.

My fellow Democrats would be foolish not to nominate John Edwards. He is the only candidate reared in the South.

A politician with a Southern upbringing--even one who is ideologically liberal--absorbs as if by osmosis a culture where religious faith is respected, military service is honored and hard, physical labor is appreciated. Those cultural values stand one in good stead in non-urban areas outside the South, as well. That becomes important so far as retaining or enhancing a Democratic majority in Congress. If Hillary Clinton is nominated, she will not help the rest of the ticket.

Every Southern Democrat nominated since 1964 has led the popular vote, except for President Carter in 1980.

Who would be Huckabee's Cheney?

to choose abortion is an essential component of personal autonomy and liberty, most especially for women, but also for maintaining decent limits on the extent to which government will rule the private lives of all its citizens. But for accuracy's sake, please quit labeling the right to avoid reproduction as "reproductive rights". George Orwell wrote his most famous novel--in which war was waged by the Ministry of Peace--as a cautionary tale about, inter alia, the use and misuse of language.

If the subject is abortion rights, let's be be honest and candid and call it that. If the subject is contraception, call it that. Nothing about these descriptive words should make those of us who care about personal liberty squirm. Let's leave the squeamishness to the sex control brigades.

Regarding the discussion upthread about whether there is a male equivalent, anatomical epithet, I submit that there is, and it has been used with some frequency to describe the other presidential candidate from New York. A Google search of Giuliani + prick yields about 38,300 results.

Much of the antipathy toward McCain among advoctes of criminalizing abortion or restricting abortion rights (let's use accurate words here rather than "choice"-based euphemisms) stems not from his position on abortion, but from his sponsorship of campaign finance laws that ban or limit so-called "issue ads" near to the time of elections, when such advertising can be most effective.

In speaking to such groups as the Federalist Society and the Conservative Political Action Committee, McCain has said that he will nominate judges who will defer to legislative bodies and who will not frustrate the will of the people's elected representatives. This may be code speak for using a prospective nominee's willingness to uphold McCain-Feingold as a litmus test for judicial appointments.

Senator McCain apparently believes that Marbury v. Madison was wrongly decided. He has called for the reversal of Roe v. Wade and for the criminalization (or not) of abortion to be returned to the states. No surprise there, given the Republican obsession with who sticks what into whom and (in the case of vaginal intercourse) the sometime result thereof.

How many other judicial decisions wherein the Supreme Court has found legislative enactments to conflict with constitutional guaranties would Senator McCain jettison? Griswold v. Connecticut? (overturning criminal statute which prohibited use of contraceptive devices); Loving v. Virginia? (overturning statute that criminalized interracial marriage); Brown v. Board of Education? (holding racial segregation of public schools to be unconstitutional); Reynolds v. Sims? (requiring one-person, one-vote principal in apportionment of state legislatures). Each of these decisions, all of which held legislative enactments to conflict with constitutional guaranties, has become part of the fabric of constitutional law in this country. I hope that the media (or better yet, the voters) will press for Senator McCain to declare whether he would favor turning these matters back over to the states.

It is infantile and silly for Congress to authorize or for the FCC to impose hefty fines for the mere use of one of the words from George Carlin's famous monologue. That having been said, Meredith Viera's discomfort at the mention of the work is well grounded in economic reality.

NBC seems to be caught in the middle here. If the FCC were to impose five figure fines on each NBC owned television station (as it did on CBS owned stations following Janet Jackson's Super Bowl performance), Ms. Fonda is not the one who would be paying the fines.

Perhaps the network should require an indemnity agreement as a condition of its guests' appearing on live telecasts.