This gender card. What role does gender play in formulating policy? None (except to the most inequitable traditionalists among us and they're Republicans). So why does this continue to be an issue or, rather, a non-issue-made-into-an-issue? As Chileans know with Bachelet and as Germans understand under the chancellorship of Merkel, policy questions are policy questions are policy questions regardless of the leader's gender. It's a serious disservice done to us all that time is spent on such things at the expense of debating distinct and detailed policy positions.

It's something to read how sanguine George Bush is about Pakistan and whether their nuclear weapons are safe from extremists: "I certainly hope so . . . but, yeah, I feel good about it right now." So why the apoplexy regarding Iran? There seems to be a hotbed of about 5 people (primarily Ahmadinejad's supporters) in Iran vs. some hundreds of thousands in Pakistani Waziristan. And, by all accounts, there is substantial support for radicals among Pakistani military and intelligence personnel, which ought to drain any feelings of comfort the President might have.

George Bush advises presidential candidates "to have a set of principles from which you will not deviate, and, so that you can make good sound decisions." It would be useful if we were presented with a set of principles from candidates that translated into a cogent, coherent foreign policy. I would have preferred that from Bush in 2000. I wonder that he cannot articulate them seven years, thousands of lives and a trillion dollars later.

As usual, confusion and contradiction trumps all when it comes to Iraq. The NY Times reports that imagined shift in tone by Democrats (while sidestepping the continuing absence of political reconciliation) because of security successes. Then the White House signs on the dotted line to move us closer to "normalized, bilateral relations" with the Iraqi government even though there has been no reconciliation. So how normalized can such a relationship be with half a government?

Even better, we read the U.S. will "support the Iraqi government in contributing to the international fight against terrorism by confronting terrorists such as al-Qaida, its affiliates, other terrorist groups." Now how do such groups remain if we've had security successes so remarkable that Democrats have scrambled to desperately shift their tones and emphases?

I'm optimistic George Bush will have departed the White House in about 13 months (and let's hope I'm not as mistaken in my use of the word as he is). As for Annapolis, his lack of personal diplomatic engagement is simply a reminder of his refusal to engage in diplomacy personally, unless it's to gaze deeply into a leader's eyes and declare policy differences resolved.

I wonder if Democratic staffers working for the judiciary and intelligence committees of both houses have ever contacted Klein and/or Time's editors regarding his misinformation campaign (perhaps this has been discussed in earlier posts). In addition to Klein, there are consistent misrepresentations across the media spectrum as regards, particularly, the various legislative efforts to reign in the Bush Administration's constitutional usurpations. The seeming silence by Democratic representatives in the face of media distortions is inexplicable.

Rewriting history indeed. Limbaugh, that well-regarded analyst, forgot to mention other successes: reconstruction (as any image of a scarred, decimated Iraq will cheerily demonstrate), political reconciliation (although that's now termed "accommodation"), and a solid percentage of Iraqis who are forced to call Syria home. And Giuliani, who's "even more certain" now about Bush's decision, reveals his own remarkable grasp of "history." In any alternate universe where history is thus understood, I'm certain, too, that "Democrats are going to agree" with him on that.

The multiple errors you cite, from both Klein and his editors, and the rather craven, hedging efforts to sidle away from them reveals not only an essential journalistic dishonesty but--and this strikes me as particularly telling--a shameful disregard for important legislation that seeks to redress grievous wrongs perpetrated by the Administration. Is it a small thing to Time that their staff can so woefully misrepresent legislative actions currently underway? And is it of no import that they are casually, contemptuously used by Republican operatives (and that's certainly the right word in this context) who surely must laugh at the ease with which this shining example of "mainstream media" can be manipulated?

You've done yeoman's work here. I'm just sorry it had to be done in the first place.

Integrity, of the sort Greenwald has demonstrated in his forensic examination of Time's editing process (if that's what it is), is about not only getting the facts right but consistently writing, in the first place, about issues of substance and significance to the public. The Brooks/Krugman shoving match simply directed copy space and attention from those issues to a near-childish argument over Reagan and his place in party orthodoxy. Readers come to Salon (at least I do) in search of elevated, serious discussion over issues that matter. Perhaps they're leaving Time and the NY Times for the same reason.

It surprises me, it really does, that religious test questions are still significant to that wing of the Republican party. Apart from the occasional condemnation of fill-in-the-blank by their leader, the party elite's policies simply do not reflect any interest in religiosity (and never have)--as is shown by the cruelty implicit in their tax policies, their militancy and their general contempt for the public over issues like health care.

Certainly, you are correct to lament the absence of critical questions regarding, among others, the foreign policy problems we face. CNN and many other large media organizations have simply forfeited any interest in asking deep, richly analytical and challenging questions of these candidates. But, if biblical allusions are the flavor of the day, let me compare CNN to Ishmael's having sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage. It's just too bad the rest of us are forced to eat of the same bowl.