The reality is, that there will always be much about these tragedies that's beyond our control, at least for the forseeable future, but saying that it's "random," goes beyond my intellectual patience. Randomness is essentially a nonsensical term. We can never know, how all the variables that conspired to produce, in Cho's disordered mind, the Virgina Tech murders, but that's not the same as saying the whole thing is "random." Calling it a random nighmare threatens to weaken our efforts at explanation. Efforts to explain these tragedies will yield better results over time. It should also be taken into account, that not all the listed "explanations," are equally absurd, though there's a temptation toward the same kind of simplistic thinking in the act of describing them as all a bunch of BS, as gave rise to the worst of the explanations in the first place.

jp

How will Baldwin or Carrie Fisher (my choices) fare better than Rosie? The problem isn't finding a suitable replacement. There is no suitable replacement, when the Left end of the political spectrum is simply verboten.

The final line in Tim Grieve's piece, "Get rid of Wolfowitz and nobody gets hurt," should be changed to read, 'Credibility among high-ranking

"republican" officials doesn't always matter to the fellow in the White House.'

Have we all forgotten what was done to "democratic" president Bill Clinton, by these same republicans (and by nearly all of the rest of us, with our confused morality). We don't hear much, these days, about Clinton's "lie," or about his sexual transgressions. The hypocrisy of the pathetic impeachment case against the former president, in the light of what has happened during W's entire adminstration, is unbearable.

I'm only concerned to point out, that the pharse "oversexed teenager," is a piece of delusional, verbal crap. No one, teenager or otherwise, is "oversexed," the notion is laughable nonsense.

C'mon handbiter, you must be joking! Hillary is as sharp as a tack. There's nothing about political posturing that she doesn't understand.

The fact is, if there's anyone that is a true leader in the pack, in spite of her political posturing (which, by the way, every politician engages in) it's Hillary. I'm not particularly a fan of hers (too conservative for my taste), but in terms of her ability to lead, to understand the issues, to rise above personality and ego, to make herself and the issues clear to the electorate; compared to her competition, in both parties, the others don't have a chance. They all seem amatuerish in her presence.

jp

Onassis,

Where did you get the idea that Hillary is "...embracing Bush's folly(?)" Hillary has told us that she voted to give Bush "the authority" to invade, with the understanding that he would follow time-honored, pre-invasion guidelines in approaching a conflict: he didn't, he lied. The explanation is more than good enough for me, because I fill in the blanks, where Hillary, and any other poltician fears to tread. What Hillary did, is vote, cynically, but cleverly, with Bush, an immensely popular political figure "at the time," knowing that either he would probably ignore her vote because he was determined to invade anyway, or hoping, on the slim chance, that he'd conduct himself like a rational politician, play brinkmanship, and back down at the last moment. At the same time, in either case, she would not be perceived as a wimp, and weak on terrorism; charges which the republicans, are to this day, trying to make stick against the democrats. Hillary, no doubt, was not only pre-emptively negatinig this argument with regard to the Iraqi authorization, but also, killing two birds with one stone, and dealing with a prejudice in the electorate, against "women," that have no taste for warfare. None of these democrats "wants" this invasion. Whatever Hillary did when she voted with Bush, she certainly was not embracing Bush's stupidity, insanity, greed and belligerence.

How amusing that many of the people that are trying to stick Hillary with this "vote" crap, are many of the same people that secretly, think a woman is incapable of being "tough enough" to conduct foreign policy.

It's my personal opinion, that Hillary is, if anything, the most devoted to peace in general, and a peaceful settlement in Iraq in particular.

jp

How amusing; how depressing; how predictible. This phenomenon, which we're supposed to see as a mystery, which it most assuredly is not, has been created by the institution that's reporting it, namely media. Media have been attacking Hillary, often savagely, from all sides, on behalf of the republican party, which media are firmly committed to supporting, and are now engaged in the sport of pretending that we're faced with a puzzling situation. Media have worked strenuously to create an outcome, which they pretend is inexplicable, or, alternatively, for which they provide facile "explanations," served up to us by scumbags such as Chris Matthews, but are actually engaged in polling the public, in an effort to see the extent of their success. As one might have expected, they've succeeded impressively. If you ask most of the people that "will not vote for Hillary," why they won't vote for her, they almost invariably respond with lame and empty drivel, suggesting that they've been brainwashed; They have no idea why they won't vote for her; like brainless automatons, they simply will not.