Where John Edwards puts his penis is low, low low on my list of wrongs I can feel "disappointed" about.

Mary Elizabeth Williams, you obviously missed the significance of this matter altogether: Campaign workers and many supporters felt immensely disappointed in what he did, and your dismissal is an insult to them, and an insult to Elizabeth and the children...Edwards could have been a Presidential nominee...what would Dems have done if he had been? A certain Repub win would have been the result. It also would have been as disastrous as Thomas Eagleton's admission of mental illness in 1972 and McGovern's shellacking at the hands of Nixon. In addition, it's not the sex that was the problem, but the lies he told, and the criminal element: paying off people to remain silent about the affair.

I was never that impressed with Edwards, and it seemed clear that he was amazingly capable of putting on a phony smile while lying his ass off. Lastly, what about the kids having to face from cruel classmates nasty jokes about their Dad? Is this something they should have to deal with at their age?

I would say that a President's ability to Google is about as important as knowing the chart positions of the Top Ten heavy metal albums on Billboard...just doesn't matter...before the Internet, people were able to do research without any problems...I trust John McCain can crack open a book, or consult with advisers who are more than happy to waste hours on a computer. The world did just fine before geek culture invaded and infested it...

If Obama feels Googling would matter more than real world research, then HE is clearly not the man for the job of President...the White House is no place for a computer nerd Commander In Chief...up off your ass from the computer and deal with things front and center...1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is declared a Pencil-necked geek free zone!

Once again, innocent lives are left in tatters as egos clash and territorial ambitions dominate. Russia, feeling threatened, feels it has to reassert its regional dominance and teach Georgia a lesson...Georgia overreacts to Ossetia's desires to be a separate entity. Bush and Company wag a finger at Putin and call him a naughty boy...Putin feels that if Bush can have his little oil war in Iraq, why can't he in Georgia?

Nordic nations and Britain side with Georgia, while southern European nations take Moscow's side...more tellingly, former Soviet satellites, haunted by the sight of Russian tanks rolling through Georgia, are reminded of the bad old days of 1968 Czechoslavakia or 1956 Hungary. For now, Georgians back their President, but it is possible they will turn on him in anger for badly underestimating Russia's reaction here. Frankly, the fitting response to Russia's militarist ambitions is to kick them out of G-8, to do as we have done, not to conduct military exercises with them, and to make certain Moscow is not the host of the 2016 Olympics. Also possible: send the cosmonauts home from Space Station and end all joint space missions with NASA...simple ways to tell Putin to back off...NOW! Of course, to really rattle Putin's cage, put many of the satellite nations such as Georgia that Russia doesn't want in NATO in on a fasttrack...now THAT would put Putin in a major snit...and frankly, who would care? The Russian Bear needs to go back in its cage for the time being.

...and retrace the West's intellectuals fascination with Russia and sympathies for some of its aims...unfortunately, some on the left are returning to this tragically outdated meme, falling hook, line and sinker for the Putin line that is as contrived as any narrative from Prava in the bad old days. As Putin tries to peddle the story to his people that Russia is the victim here, evidence to the contrary is rampant...there are no clear good guys here, unlike what some on the left are trying to portray...Putin is clearly wanting to have Russia show that it is a dominant super power in the region and to teach Georgia and any other wayward nations that riling Russia will be costly, not only financially but militarily. Granted, Bush has needlessly stoked Russia's ire by courting former Soviet satellites for admission to NATO, enraging Putin and Russia's power elite. Still, it is clear that the KGB in Putin will not let Russia become a bit player in regional geopolitics. We already have seen how the poisoning of diplomats was one means to deaden resistance to a powerful Russia.

Western intellectuals once tried to see Moscow as right and yet soon realized that such an idea was supremely naive and absurd on its face...

There was no way Russia would allow Georgia to have NATO membership without a fight, and probably most of NATO really didn't want to invite that kind of trouble anyway.

Too bad, isn't it? We are in no way obligated to appease Russia on NATO...