... to be compelled to read a comic strip that one hates, week after week. Surely the only thing worse is the tragic compulsion to then spend additional precious minutes of one's life writing a letter detailing exactly how one feels.

It's occurred to me that this could become a life-destroying problem. Where does it end? Once the low-hanging fruit of Kansas O'Flaherty is gone, the afflicted must seek out ever more obscure comics to read, in anguish, and then rail against. I imagine, in my own case, having to spend each day hunting down the latest Cathy, Garfield, thence perhaps Brenda Starr if I could even find her online, and so on down to the likes of Mallard Fillmore — or worse. I shudder to think.

Of course, one mustn't judge, only try to acknowledge the pain of those in the throes of this torment. I wish you strength in your struggle, Kansas O'Flaherty-haters. Remember, you can reclaim your dignity, reclaim your lives, and conquer this need. Think of your loved ones, think of a better time to come — a time when comics you loathe have no power over you.

You can do it!

A knee jerk contrarian gets editors choice this week.

Now that's hardly fair. If I were a knee-jerk contrarian I would write nasty things about comics that Salon readers generally love, like the trolls who attack defenders of This Modern World before they've even posted.

For that matter, I'd probably be knee-deep in the midst of defending Gary Kamiya's claim that race is dead, or attacking Glenn Greenwald at every opportunity or taking the losing side of every debate in one of King Kaufman's columns.

People getting worked up about how something on the internet sucks, though — that's different! Seriously, I admire the amount of energy required to sustain something like that.

For myself, I'll wait and see what Schlesinger and Bachtell have in store. And keep reading the letters.

... Bush's opponent was criticizing Rumsfeld's war strategy ...

Damn right he was. Kerry's plan was to get American troops out of the cities and along the borders, where they'd be more mobile and more effective in stopping the flow of arms and "foreign fighters" and less likely to provoke the locals. Let Iraqis run their own affairs, and keep al Quaeda out. And he got creamed for not knowing how to fight terrorists.

We won't ever know if it would have been a viable plan, but the current one certainly isn't, even with the "surge" (or whatever it really is — it seems more like "step 1 in a face-saving effort to get the hell out of dodge," which if it is will get my vote).

From Update II:

"The point is, journalists, particularly in Washington, aren't going to be able to repeat partisan spin that contains falsehoods as analysis without being called on it anymore."

but then by Update III we learn:

The Chicago Tribune today published large excerpts from Klein's column, including the factually false parts.

Oh well. It looks like Colvin's sunny assertion isn't quite true yet.

Here's what I want to know more about — what is going on with all this silence? Reporters have told me that it's become commonplace for editors or sometimes even owners to just drop stories, or radically alter them. Sometimes a mundane reason is given — not enough space, which is always a factor in editorial decisions, or corrections requested by sources on fact-checking. But sometimes it just happens with no explanation, and "problem" reporters find after a time that they're consigned perpetually to low-status gigs while their more agreeable colleagues move up.

And what about the Democratic leadership? In more candid moments some of them complain that they literally can't get the press to cover what they have to say — or that it takes Carvillean efforts. That implies that somewhere are stacks of press releases, the words of fighting Democrats, that are being trashed without ever seeing the light of day. Is that true? I would think that someone like Glenn Greenwald, or someone at Salon, would have access to that sort of thing if it really existed. But the idea that these guys have nothing to say while they're being torn down doesn't seem plausible.

... a hint that another rate cut is coming (which in itself one would rationally think should be taken as a sign that the economy is in real trouble) ...

It's worth remembering that a stock surge, especially a sudden one, is almost as far from being an indicator of economic stability as is a plunge.

But that aside, the other factor to keep in mind is that declining foreign investment represents a lack of a very specific kind of confidence. Andrew Leonard alludes to this when he refers to national banks betting on the dollar's continuing value, and their subsequent anxiety — but not all central banks want dollars solely as a way to build investment value.

For instance the Chinese economy benefits tremendously from dollars remaining relatively scarce, and I'm sure China will be happy to keep the dollar-yuan balance as heavily in its favor as it can for as long as it can, regardless of whether the dollar is taking a bath compared to the euro. The last thing China wants is for American mass production to start becoming competitive in the world market again.

In fact, if it weren't for one glaring exception, a low dollar would represent a great opportunity for innovation. That exception is oil.