Quicker even than I could, someone else called out Joan on her tricky use of the word "persecuted" in Bonds' case.

He's being prosecuted for lying to a federal grand jury. Last I recall, when somebody named Scooter Libby was being persecuted, er, prosecuted for that crime (in a highly partisan witch hunt), Joan and the Salonistas thought it was a pretty big deal to lie to a grand jury.

So Bonds' "persecution" prior to his indictment was what, Joan? Baseball didn't punish him. Hell, the Players' Union and Don Fehr would never have permitted it. Bonds' "persecution" was to be challenged in the press. If it was out of proportion with the challenges to other players, my guess it was because no other players were en route to busting the Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron home run records. Mark McGwire, a white man, and Sammy Sosa, a Latino, got the same scrutiny that you describe as "persecution" following their hunt for the single-season version of Bonds' career HR record.

I do want to thank you for clearing one thing up beyond any doubt. That is, that Roger Clemens' greatest sin in your eyes is the fact that he is a Texas Republican who supports President Bush.

This was the most hysterical bit of white-guilt bloviating I've seen on Salon, and that is really saying a lot.

What I said was that McGwire and Sosa got Bonds-style scrutiny "following" their great, tainted obliteration of the single-season HR record.

What has happened to the two of them FOLLOWING that season? At first, they were indeed lionized by an adoring press. Then, they were challenged in the press. They were hualed in front of a Congressional committee and humiliated on world television. And now, their Hall of Fame status is in doubt. About the same as Bonds.

I am absolutely serious. The left loves to champion the enlightened doctors who favor assisted suicide. If it was so humane for Dr. Kevorkian to use his little death machine, I say that we borrow that thing.

This particular debate is not about whether the death penalty is wise or is fair or is good public policy. This particular debate is about cruel and unusual methodologies of execution. Or at least it ought to be. But that's not where death penalty opponents want to take this argument. And that much is revealing. It is easy to see that this debate over lethal injections is a straw man for the debate about capital punishment in general.

There is no good reason to accept the claims that lethal injections are cruel and unusual punishments because those claims are not advanced in good faith by the opponents of lethal injections.

Clearly, I see that the Salonistas are mostly unrepentant about arguing that all forms of capital punishment are "cruel and unusual," and so therefore there can be no place for lethal injections. It is just amazing to me that so few of you see that your extension of that argument undermines the original argument; that accepting (as you must, and as the Supreme Court should) that the United States Constitution, which explicitly acknowledges capital punishment in its text, does not in and of itself proscribe capital punishment. That's really old ground for most Constitutional scholars.

You all are then stuck with the argument that while capital punishment is not unconstitutional, "lethal injection" (which the framers had never dreamed of) is somehow a peculiarly cruel and unusual form of execution, compared to others... !?! More than the routine method of execution in the framers' day, which was death by hanging!?!

Dr. Kevorkian and assisted suicide? Oh, please. Talk about straw men! Assisted suicide and execution have nothing to do with each other. Last I checked, execution wasn't voluntary like assisted suicide.

Why do you argue that claims about lethal injection being inhumane are not advanced in good faith? One can both want to abolish the death penalty and also see problems with an existing execution method.

I don't suppose that all liberals favor assisted suicide. Particularly principled liberals who are deeply involved in the rights of persons handicapped by crippling and life-threatening diseases.

But for those liberals (most of them, I presume) who support the right to physician-assisted suicide, are you saying that a Kevorkian-style procedure does not cause physical pain and suffering? Is a Kevorkian-style procedure the most medically comfortable way to end life through stopping cardiovascualar function?

You can answer those questions any way you'd like. If you answer those questions "yes," then I suggest that you offer that method as the preferred method of execution. If you answer those questions in the negative, and claim that there is no method of ending a life that is not painful, cruel and unusual, then we know where you stand -- in opposition to the text of the Constitution.

So, if there is a method that you are banking on in your pro-assisted-suicide arguments that provides the "least cruel and unusual" method for ending a life, then just let us know what that is.