I briefly met John Edwards before he went to the U.S. Senate and I consider myself to be an unabashed admirer of his. And I am a trial lawyer (and proud to be one, by the way). But I absolutely agree with the previous poster. And I don't think I'm just whistling past the graveyard on this one.

John Edwards is the real deal. He is a genuinely caring and personable man who I believe give the Democrats the best chance to win the Whitehouse in 2008. In addition, I think that he would be the best possible President among those mentioned to be running. I plan to do everything in my power to help him get elected.

While I don't expect anyone here to be swayed by what I say, I do hope that you all will look at him with an open mind and give him you full attention before you make up your mind. He is deserving of you attention, and in my humble opinion, he is deserving of your support and your vote.

As one of your readers astutely points out, the leave and leave now camp, and your article, ignore Saudi Arabia. Given that our "friends" in the dessert kingdom are the ones with their hand on the spigot of the oil that we need, and are Sunni, to ignore them is the height of folly.

The Saudis are serious about protecting the Sunni minority in Iraq and have much to fear from an Iranian dominated region. If we pick up our toys and go home -- an admittedly superficially appealing alternative -- they may well intervene in Iraq and cut back on their oil production. Then what will we do when oil hits $100, $150, $200, $250, etc. And they are the one country with the production capacity to make that happen.

Our reliance on foreign oil requires us to take our energy dependence into account when we select among these options. It is certainly not appealing to say that our soldiers are going to die so that already high oil prices don't triple and cripple our economy, but that is the horrible Hobson's choice that Bush's insanity has placed before us.

I have known Harriet Meirs (albeit less well than my law partner) for years before she went to the White House. I know a number of her former partners at her old firm well. I rather doubt that she was pushed from her current position. Instead, I suspect that she was just tired and wanted to come home.

Some of you apparently misapprehend the objections the true objections that the right wingers had to Harriet Miers nomination. They claimed that their objection was that she lacked the gravitas and intelligence to be a justice. However, I can assure you that is not true. She is a very sharp lawyer and an excellent oral advocate.

Their real objection to her nomination was that she did not have a written record swearing fealty to a particular judicial ideology. No one really knew her politics, and that scared the Federalist Society wing nuts to death. She would come to the bench with no preconceived agenda, and that was the last thing that the right wingers wanted.

Courtrooms all over the State of Texas are littered with the remains of lawyers and litigants who underestimated Harriet's ability. She's plenty smart and plenty tough. Don't swallow the right wing propaganda that she's a light weight. That's just the lie that they told to get a committed ideologue like Alito nominated in her stead.

Unfortunately, getting out now is not as easy as it sounds. Were we to do that, ethnic cleansing of Sunnis in unprecedented numbers would ensue. Saudi Arabia, a Sunni nation, would (correctly) blame us for the slaughter of their coreligionists. The Saudis will not take this genocide lightly and will likely retaliate against us by, among other things, drastically restricting their oil production. Doubtless such threats were made, overtly or otherwise, when the Vice-President was recently called up on the carpet. Therefore, pulling out now may mean $150 or $200 a barrel oil. That is not a viable option.

One nice thing about this is that Joe Leiberman has completely self-destructed as any kind of a serious national figure. In 2000, he was considered a serious contender for the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination. Now, he's a punchline.

Hopefully, the solution to this problem will be at hand in 2008 with a increase in the number of Democrats in the Senate. Then the Democratic caucus can strip the no good (tort "reformin") son of a bitch of his committee chairmanship and tell him that he can either fall in line of hit the bricks. That would be a good time to remind him that the reception that he gets on the other side of the aisle will be chilly at best. Not to mention that the only hope that he has to keep his seat in 2012, is to stay on the Democratic side and try to learn how to be a half way decent Democrat instead of a no good Quisling with no fuckin' spine.

But until such time as we have a bigger majority, this scenario will, unfortunately have to remain a dream and we'll have to smile at Sen. Leiberman and say "Good morning, Mr. Chairman." What's the famous line, "Never do we stand so tall as when we stoop to kiss an ass."