I agree with everyone who has recommended that Wingnut's space be given to King. King really is one of the best sports writers out there--funny, insightful, informed, and best of all, willing to listen to his readers--and I miss his columns very, very much. Why oust a talented guy, and give virtual column inches to someone who simply regurgitates right-wing talking points? It's appalling, frankly.

Bring back King!

Joan, have you noticed that in the still-frame that greets readers of this story, you and Liz Cheney are tilting your heads towards the same side, and have almost identical expressions on your faces?

Not making a point here; just thought it was kinda funny.

I should also point this out: this was a debate on national security between two women, moderated by a woman. We have a ways to go, but jeez, we're getting there, eh?

Well, a bunch of banks are "giving back" their bailout money. Maybe we can just shuffle that on over to California.

You mentioned Alfa and Ferrari, but you forgot Lamborghini, Maserati, and the now-owned-by-Germans Bugatti. Cars that go vroom, they could definitely make, those Italians.

My problem with assertions such as Orlean's is that they contain too many base assumptions that are, at their heart, pretty sexist. They assume that "men" and "women" respond to the same stimuli in "male" and "female" ways, and that's all she wrote.

Which is, of course, hooey.

In my house, when my wife and I are both working, it's me that is the target of interruptions. Interrupt Mama when she's working, and Feel Her Wrath; best to interrupt Papa. So Papa has learned, both from his kids and from coworkers with ADD in his office environment, to be able to, not multitask, but to digress and then regress without losing too much. Write a bunch of command reference pages, go kill the spider, sign for the FedEx package, and then do some more reference pages.

The bottom line is, clearly it's non-gender-specific. My wife can't multitask for shit; I can digress without a problem, and it has nothing to do with our respective genders.

Of course, society does expect men and women to adhere to certain gender roles; if the job market requires a parent to be away for a lengthy period of time, society expects it to be the dad, and frowns on it if it is the mom. And often it is easier to swim with the societal tide than against it. But as to whether gender impacts writers and who gets stuck being interrupted at home? I call "baloney."

Glenn, everyone, to a certain extent, needs to be whacked on the face before they can recognize an issue that needs to be addressed. Sometimes, like Nancy Reagan with Alzheimers or Dick Cheney with gay and lesbian issues, that issue is in direct opposition to their "beliefs." More often, it's simply in an area where they haven't given it any thought at all. So if someone doesn't have a gay relative or close friend, they simply never think of gay issues. Or if you don't have a special needs child, you think special needs kids get an unfair break from "the system." Etc.

Do I think that people like Liz Cheney and Jonah Goldberg take this to ridiculous extremes? Of course I do. But I also think it's a very, very common human trait. Some people have the self-honesty, courage, and determination to work on it; most don't.

People don't like to give up their personal comfortable assumptions, Glenn, and it's hardly limited to the right-wing whackos you name; it's a pretty common human trait. Which doesn't mean it should be forgiven, but it should be planned for and treated that way, rather than an abberation. (For example, do you spend much time thinking about K-12 special ed needs? Does it bother you that K-12 special ed children get disproportionate amounts of money and care? See what I'm saying here?)

Basic empathy -- present in any healthy individuals -- allows one to care about injustices without first having to suffer directly from them.

Empathy is a moral quality that you aren't born with; it has to be trained. Thus, people fall on an "empathy spectrum", if you will; with folks like Limbaugh and Goldberg and O'Reilly at the "as self-interested as a toddler" end, and the MLKs and Nelson Mandelas and Ghandis of the world way over at the other end. To generate empathy for stem-cell research in a Nancy Reagan--someone who has shown precious little empathy for, say, AIDS sufferers--it takes a close family member getting Alzheimers. For others, it takes much less.

So I respectfully disagree. Yes, there's a big difference between actively working to support something, and actively opposing it. But I really believe that there is a spectrum, and that we all need to be prodded along to get moving towards the Ghandi end of it. (And I think that people from traditionally oppressed groups--blacks, hispanics, jews, gays and lesbians--tend to be farther towards that end of the spectrum--in general--than the non-oppressed. But that's just my opinion.)

Oh Joan. It's his bat, his ball, his backyard, his referees, and he gets to make the rules. He can also edit the final game so that, if you actually scored a few runs in the third and fourth innings, they don't appear in the final box score.

No; the way to defeat this bully is to meet him on fair ground. That is not, nor has it ever been, his joke of a show. You should listen to your friends next time, I'm thinking.

I'm not going to watch the show; O'Reilly makes me want to scream and hurl things, and my blood pressure's too high already.

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus are not environmentalists; they are political analysts/consultants. There's a world of difference.