Camille: are you mad? You give any credibility to this character Sarah Palin? Are you joking?

She may be just one more melanoma away from the Oval Office. Perhaps you have forgotten this. And this...

Ms Palin dodges subpoenas in Alaska, is married to a man who just months ago wanted to destroy the Union by withdrawing Alaska from it, whose lectures on sexual abstinence have been less than successful in her own family, and who believes in witchcraft.

That's right. Witchcraft. Millions have seen the YouTube video. I gather you haven't. In a spirit of forgiveness, let me give you the url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwkb9_zB2Pg

In it you will see one Rev Thomas Muthee praying over her, with laying on of hands, to prevent the influence of "witches" on "our Sarah". Anyone half-rational would have, at such a moment, politely decamped. Not our Sarah. She happily stayed, and is now certified "witch-free".

You actually think this crackpot is qualified to hold national office? Sheesh.

How absurd. Pat Buchanan, of all people, criticizing General Powell for leaving the Republican party "that did so much to honor him"? What??

This would be the same Buchanan who destroyed Pres Bush I's chances with talk of "cultural wars"? And then, having lost the Republican nomination, ran against his own party on another ticket?

Who is this nutcase? The phoniness of his arguments is matched only by his apparent forgetfulness -- or his hope that our memories are even worse and shorter than his. Either way, this crackpot loses any claim to respectable discourse.

He makes even Sarah Palin sound sensible, and that takes some doing.

Who can be surprised by this? Crackpot churches are forever shooting themselves in their theological feet.

Consider the scandals and weird beliefs of the following 'pastors': Earl Paulk, Paul Crouch, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn, Richard Roberts, Oral Roberts, Peter Popoff, Billy James Hargis, Tony Leyva, Warren Jeffs, Max Lucado, Robert Tilton, Pat Robertson, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, John Hagee, Coy Privatte, Lonnie Latham, Roy Long, Jeff Hannah, Mark Mangrum, Steven Haney, Howard Blattel, Gary Aldridge, Leonard Frazier, Joe Baron -- and, of course, the special friend of male prostitutes, 'Rev' Ted Haggard.

How difficult is it to see a pattern here?

These religious lunatics give Elmer Gantry a bad name. Eventually, but never soon enough, their avarice, greed and absurdity bring them down. New Life Church is just one more disaster zone. Another is waiting in the wings, attending on the next Great Leader. Ludicrous.

I appreciate Gary's article, but would not yet jump off a cliff to his conclusions. In a way, Pat Buchanan and his impolitic talk of "culture wars" got it right. As in the well-documented history of the people of Kansas voting against their own economic interests, many Americans will continue to do so when summoned to the occasion by cultural/religious interests.

Case in point: Prop 8 in California, the state constitutional amendment which passed by a margin of about 4%, not too different from the margin by which Sen Obama won nationally -- but in its own mirror.

The 'Yes on 8' coalition is also the future of the Republican Party, and it is not insignificant. It is another form of protectionism. It crosses religious and social boundaries which are normally unbridgeable (Mormons abetting the Catholic hierarchy, Obama-voting blacks who consider homosexuality a moral aberration, Obama-voting blue-collar union members who consider male homosexuality a sin -- but rent porn videos featuring lesbians), and so on.

It is by no means clear which way lie legal challenges pro and con 8, but this much is clear: there exists a 'Bradley Effect' in a purely social context. Those who, more familiarly, make the case that "some of my best friends are Jews" apparently deceived pollsters, and voted 'Yes on 8' when they claimed otherwise.

If Republicans learn how to coalesce such forces (they are trying to do it with Muslims as well), their particular vitriol will be with us for some years to come.

Not everyone watched 'Brokeback Mountain'. And not everyone understood its achingly American point of view.

Good grief. Camille's crush on Sarah gets more ludicrous by the week. Because Mrs Palin lost so widely (and wildly), Ms Paglia seems to feel it necessary to defend her from 'unfairness'.

Mrs Palin may have graduated from Idaho State with a degree in journalism (THERE's a big whoop), but she went through four other colleges first.

The fact that she speaks "Be-bop English" is as rabid a compliment as praising someone for speaking "ebonics". Mrs Palin's English is, quite simply, the spoken language of someone who isn't very bright. Her sentences begin in one galaxy and end in another, having warped through mangled syntax, childish grammar, and -- well -- linguistic howlers. And Camille thinks this a sign of intelligence? People who cannot speak clearly cannot think clearly. Look at Pres Bush II. His mangled English betrayed mangled logic, stubbornness disguised as Purpose.

Mrs Palin? Even worse. She argues for backward science, believes in witches, evidently awaits God's advice on her next political campaign, and generally sounds like a dunce.

In fact, she is.

I now understand why the Democrats have chosen to retain Sen Joe Lieberman as Chair of Homeland Security. They must have found out that Vidkun Quisling was unavailable.