Beautiful overview of the Right Wing Slime Machine, Mr. Tomorrow! Even though, in this case, a few news services investigated and debunked the story, it's already become part of the common wisdom for nearly everyone in the US.

Have they ever found out which individuals created and perpetrated the smear? Is anyone looking?

It's time for all Democratic candidates to expand their "War Rooms" to include investigators and litigators. When something like this comes up, it's not sufficient to merely respond nor even to debunk - the perps need to be identified AND SUED. Republicans like to sneer how "trial lawyers" favor the Democrats, so bring them on.

The Democratic Party needs to start recruiting talent and raising money to defeat the "rat-f***ers" in the courts. Expose them, sue them, jail them when you can. Drag their sorry tales through the meatgrinder of our legal system, and keep on doing it until it stops.

If there's no cost for pulling this kind of thing, it will never end.

When Dr. Buckley notes "Anyone who is not American will realize when reading these threads that American democracy is not simply “messy,” it is ugly, uninformed, disrespectful, and loutish."

In part, this is just the culture of the Internet. This is how people comported themselves way back in Usenet days. On the Internet, people may not realize that you're a dog, but too many feel free to act like a son of a b****. The relative anonymity, combined with physical remoteness, lets people indulge their ugliest and most contrarian impulses without risking violence to their persons.

But these days, the whole world is reading, and while the perps may not be physically endangered themselves, the reputation of Americans suffers, as Dr. Buckley points out.

I'd support a "recommend kill" button. Get rid of the a-holes and trolls and pro-Zionist ravers. Make the killing process editor-moderated, so the good stuff isn't killed by the louts.

(Report this)

Eventually, probably sooner than later, they'll be working around to replacing Patrick Fitzgerald. Definitely, if he indicts Dick Cheney.

One of the continuing themes in many of these letters is lamenting how tragic it is that poor Ashley will never be able to experience "sexual pleasure", since her breasts and uterus have been removed. That this is why it was so wrong, so dreadfully wrong, for her parents to have had her surgically altered/mutilated.

That's pure nonsense. You don't need a functioning uterus, or developed breasts, or even to have passed puberty, to experience "sexual pleasure" - on your own. Pre-school girls often figure this out, to the horror of their parents.

As far as little boys go, "castration" (or in the 21st century, a vasectomy) never stopped a man from having, and enjoying, sex. The ancient Italian castratos were particularly popular sex partners, since they could cause no embarrassing pregnancies.

If all you're concerned about is whether a girl who is effectively 3 months old can "get it on" in her later life (as a 3 month old), I hope this relieves your concerns.

Yes he was, and it was - gasp! - Ted Olson who drove the Republican's "Whitewater" persecution of Bill. Check out The Hunting of the President and Fools for Scandal.

An anonymous poster (and who could blame him/her?) observes that "For decades, liberal Jews in the US taught Americans to feel compassion for the victims of racism, discrimination, and slavery. They were at the forefront of the American Civil Rights movement ..."

Where are these liberal Jews today? We don't hear much about them in coverage of Israeli politics anymore; we know most of them are lying low in the United States these days, for fear of being labelled "self-hating Jews" or even "anti-semites" by the big Wurlitzer of the "mainstream" right wing-dominated media. Even though the only "semites" in Israel are the native Arabs, now largely pushed out into the occupied territories.

I was disappointed that this article doesn't mention any non-right wing opinions within Israel. Does no one there care about the apartheid-like conditions and brutality being inflicted upon the Palestians? Does no Israeli realize that land is being flat-out stolen to provide more space for illegal settlements?

Meanwhile, there seems to be more and more coverage, nearly every day on NPR, of "the Holocaust." I guess we Americans need to keep it in mind constantly, so we won't question Israel's "need" to lash out, for "existential" reasons. (What would Nietszche think?) They only understand force, the Israeli leaders say of the Arabs. But it seems that it's the Israelis who only understand force, and Hamas last summer finally taught them a lesson.

Where are the liberal Jews? We talk about the "spineless Democrats;" would it be anti-semitic to ask about "spineless Jews" or "spineless Israelis"? The Democrats are back - what about Labor?