As I read Prof. Cole's piece on Ariel Sharon, I kept wondering what it is exactly that the Israelis could do that would meet with his approval. The pullout from Gaza was just a ploy to put more Palestinians in poverty. The wall is an attempt at Apartheid. Ariel Sharon is an war-monger whose only goal is to destroy the Palestinians as a people. Etc.

Let me be clear: I am no big fan of Sharon. His idiotic behavior in Lebannon should make clear what kind of man he is. But faced by an Arab world that is hostile to its existence, and has been since before it actually did exist; confronted with current Arab countries that vow to destroy it; existing under the constant threat of suicidal children, egged on by their parents and guardians, blowing themselves up in the middle of bunches of civilians; attempting to continue to exist as the sole Jewish country in the world in the face of continual and often near-unanimous world opposition no matter what their behavior; what does Prof. Cole suggest Israel do, other than decamping and moving to, say, Uganda? Seriously?

Israel is hardly above reproach, certainly. One should also bear in mind, however, the behavior of the Arab countries--their co-religionists--to the Palestinian refugees; they have hardly been a model of enlightened behavior themselves.

When issuing such a negative manifesto, one can only wonder what, aside from national suicide, is expected of Israel other than their current behavior. Perhaps next time, Prof. Cole can provide some suggestions rather than just heaping abuse on Israeli heads.

I must admit that this whole thing confuses me somewhat. It seems so clear.

There is a law on the books that explicitly forbids the President from doing what he did. The President not only broke that law, he also admitted it, and has promised to break it again. (I am not enough of a legal scholar--not one at all, actually--to say so, but if this isn't an "illegal search and seizure" and therefore un-Constitutional, what the heck is?) Why is this complicated at all? The guy broke the law and admitted it; where's the confusing part?

It is also pretty clear from the Administration's prevarications that they know this is blatantly illegal as well. When this issue was explicitly discussed prior to passing the authorization to use force, Senators told the White House that such would not authorize these kinds of taps. When asked about the taps, the Attorney General admitted that they didn't go to Congress because they figured Congress would not authorize an expansion of wiretapping of this type. And further, it is clear that very few people outside the immediate circle of the Administration (and their apologists on the right, such as Fred Barnes) agree with the idea that being the Commander-in-chief during wartime absolves the President of following the law.

I am further confused as to how "conservatives" can support this. Didn't some of these folks actually become conservatives because of the over-reaching for executive power of previous Democratic Presidents like FDR and LBJ? Don't these folks say that they want a less-intrusive government? Did I miss something, or are these not bedrock conservative principles?

Anyway, I'm confused. It is trite to say so, but if this had been Bill Clinton, the impeachment proceedings would have started last November.

As a person who has been online for quite some time, I find these reactions by the bastions of the mainstream media to what its like being in that world to be a strange combination of fascination, hilarity, and head-shaking. The behavior of people in the text-driven online world really hasn't changed all that much in the last 25 years; there's just a lot more of them. You have your knowledgable folks, your reasonable folks, your trolls out looking for a fight, and your profanity hurlers.

The reaction of these folks to their very first flamewar reminds me of an interaction I had with my father many years ago. Bear with me on this: UC Santa Cruz is set partly inside a redwood forest. Deer, racoons, and all kinds of other animals wander about at will. Once years ago, a skunk walked into one of the dorms, and there was considerable consternation until it deigned to wander out again. When I told my Dad about it, he commented, "Well, Doug, once you let nature in, you get the whole thing."

You opened the door to online nature, Post; you can't only have the pretty deer and keep the skunks out, you get the whole thing. Welcome aboard!

Well, now I guess we know the gap between articles on boomer books: 10 months or so. We got our last review of a boomer book on Salon on 4/17--David Bowman's "The Haunted 50s" (http://www.salon.com/books/int/2005/04/17/atlas/index.html). Guess 10 months is too long to go, so here comes another one. Oh boy!

Sunfell is absolutely correct; lumping someone born in the early 60s with someone born in, say, 1948, is completely absurd. I barely remember black and white TV; we watched the Watergate hearings during Elementary School class; I wore bell bottoms, but I was 11 at the time. What do I have in common with someone who was smoking dope on the lawn at Kent State when the troops started shooting? Zippo.

We plug along, doing our jobs and taking care of our families and not writing self-absorbed books, and yes, subterraneanne, we do vote. But it seems like our votes get overwhelmed by the Boomers and The Greatest Generation, and we end up with Reagans and Bushes as President anyway.

And folks wonder why we're cynical.