Let's not jump to any conclusions about this, whether the university handled it right or anything else. It took me only a moment to come up with several basic questions we don't yet know the answers to. This is a story that just broke, and we should know by now with stories like this that much of the initial reporting is wrong.

You left out the rest of story. After his apology, he put on Shakespearean costume and said, "Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions."

That's a misdirection to say he was just keeping his inbox clean. Most of us clean out our inboxes. I've had employers that automatically delete mail after a certain date. It's not about the inbox. It's about the servers. Mail servers hold the archives, the traces of deleted mail, and because of legal requirements regarding evidence discovery and lawsuits, and just the desire to back up their own cases, every organization keeps everything. They have backup servers, stoage servers, tape backups, even sometimes off-site storage in case of disaster of the non-political kind. If the RNC or White House really lost all that e-mail, they were trying. They were deleting from servers, reformatting hard drives, running magnets over them, and maybe smashing them with axes. Even if we never get the missing e-mail, someone ordered the destruction of the servers and archives in order to comit obstruciton of justice. Trace that to the White House, and they're still going down.

You were right to start that paragraph, "We're just guessing here..." because we don't know, but what you're suggesting makes sense. It seemed too bizarre even for Bush to suggest that a delay in the bill would mean extended deployments. Loss of funding would mean withdrawals. Democrats were reining in the mission, not extending it. Delays would mean shifting money like prior years. How his statements connected just made no sense. Now it does. He was going to frame the issue by saying delaying the bill or including withdrawal dates would mean extensions, and then he would extend. They must have been talking about such a broad extension a long time, so when they wrote Bush's speech, they knew this was coming up. Had to. I can't believe the White House would be in the dark about something like that. It's still not proven, but if I can make a guess, whoever leaked was one of those who knew and couldn't stand to watch it happen.

I'm fully cognizant that McCain and the delusional right have been, well, delusional since the beginning about Iraq. I say that as someone who opposed the invasion back in 2002 when the evidence presented to the public failed to hold up. I nonetheless can't help thinking about mass killings and exodus of refugees after we got out of Indochina.

I say that fully aware that the problem was intervening in Vietnam and spreading the war to Laos and Cambodia, backing dictators and abandoning those who supported us. Nonetheless, war opponents and Democrats got most of the blame. The neocons are setting us up for the blame again, and concerns about what happens to those who supported us in Iraq are legitimate. I have them too, before ever hearing a warning from the nutcase right.

We have leave at some point, and the problem of safety for those deemed collaborators won't go away. That's why I'd like to see the withdrawal plans include enough visas to evacuate those associated with us. I realize the Bushies won't want that because it looks like an admission of failure to have to bring people here for their safety, but that should just show it needs to be done. Yes, I'll admit more than humanitarian concerns, though that should be enough; nonetheless, we need to get ready for the "who lost Iraq?" debate. If we lose that debate, which we can no matter how much Bush screwed up, we'll lose foreign policy and national security as in issue again for another generation.

I don't know much about Gov. Crist. He sure seems like a liberal on election issues. As I recall, he has previously called for getting rid of touchscreens, and now he supports letting released felons vote. We should hold him up to his party as proof that justice and common sense don't hurt after all. They even get a lefty like me praising someone in the GOP.

There's no need to feel guilty about giving her more attention. It's how it's done. Let's think in turn of political jiu jitsu, or for a more western reference, the Rove strategy of using your opponents' strength against them. Republicans love Coulter, so let's stick her so close to Republicans that voters will think all Republican candidates have Coulter for a running mate. Let's make her the face of the GOP and let Americans be disgusted.If one of them gets caught in a photo with her, show that photo over and over. If she praises one of them, repeat that quote when talking about that candidate. Rather trying to make Coulter go away, we can make the GOP wish she would go away.