Needless to say, my thoughts and the prayers of many go out to the Edwards family and the thousands of others who find themselves in similar (or worse) places tonight.

A few thoughts on continuing the campaign. How lucky this couple is to have a choice. I have a cousin, in her mid 40's, a widowed single mom, in the exact same situation, who received the same diagnosis about four or five years ago. She continued to work, but there was no discussion of what she wanted to do. Had there been, she may well have decided to continue her job as a ultrasound tech. Or she might have opted to spend time with family. But she had to work to keep her insurance. She's still fighting the disease and still working. She gets tired, and would like to quit now, but she can't. Because we don't have a health care system that will let her, unless she gives up her home (the only real asset she has) and goes on Medicaid.

My cousin in the kind of person that John and Elizabeth Edwards, bless their hearts, are fighting for. Cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence. Even invariably fatal cancers, like metastatic breast cancer are conditions that people live with, in some cases, for many years. Witness Molly Ivins. Would you have wanted Molly Ivins to have quit what she was doing the last seven years of her life?

And as for those who pontificate on whether the Edwards' private decision is the wrong or right one -- or whose, those who are using this tragedy for partisan political advantage, I've about had my belly full of that bull shit. This isn't your life, it's theirs. If John staying the course is what makes her want to get every morning and put one foot in front of the other, who the hell are ya'll to second guess that, may I ask?

Is nothing private anymore? Is nothing below the purview of political gutter snipes? Is there no decency left at all? No wonder so few honorable and decent people want little to do with public service.

Best wishes to Mr. Snow. Partisanship ends when it comes to something like your heath.

As for those posters here who can't find the grace to wish him well, I hardly know what to say. That lack of grace is something that I would never expect to see from those on the progressive side of the political spectrum. Caring for your fellow man, whether he if fallen or not, is your charge. Shame on you.

I'm not at all surprised that the political atmosphere is poisoned. What I am surprised about it that I thought that progressives were better at separating personal animosity from politics because we were better and fundamentally more moral people.

I guess in some cases, I am destined to be disappointed.

Good for the networks. The was reason enough to fire the man that his show was just one more example of the debasement of our culture. Now for their penance, the networks should have a three hour daily show for some intelligent commentator who would actually engage in serious conversation about real issues and without crudity and locker room humor. Bill Moyers comes immediately to mind. We can dream, can't we?

I think having a column on gossip and popular culture is a horrible idea for a serious publication. I would look at it about once a month and in about ten seconds I would remember why I hadn't looked at it in a month. Spend the same resources covering news, politics, or other serious topics.

The General is almost certainly overstating the case to say that cultural insensitivity and inadequate language skills are what caused us to loose the war. That being said, those tools are certainly necessary for any kind of well trained 21st century military. I think many of of us agree that ousting Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan was a much better conceived war than Iraq. Yet it too have ultimately been bungled by incompetent leadership. But imagine competent leadership, culturally aware Generals and soldiers, and lots of linguistic skills on the ground there. We might well have a much different outcome than what we see now.

I don't really understand why ya'll listen to this lying SOB in any event. He's like a car salesman -- you can tell he's lying because his lips are moving. There's no point in listening to him an pissin' and moaning about what he says. He' been doing this for six, going on seven, years.

The answer is to counter attack. Right now, the number of people who believe that he's doing a good job on the war is right up there with the number of people who believe in UFO's -- maybe lower. Just treat him like the worthless, no-good skunk hide that he is.

My God, man, take back what you said about David Hume. He wasn't English. He was Scottish. As we say down here in the South, "Take that back and call me a son-of-a-bitch."

1. Much, much slower than reading.

2. And if you're going to force us to utilize our time is such an unproductive way, at least have one with decent audio quality. I listened for about a minute and quit.

Is it my imagination or:

1. Are there a lot more anonymous posters than there used to be; and

2. Has the quality of the discussions gone way down hill;

lately?

Granted, I am usually too busy at work to read the comment sections of the article that I read, but boy, what a waste of time it was to scan this one.