I was raised Catholic during the 60s, on the cusp of the changes wrought by Vatican II, and in a neck of the woods where there simply weren't any Jews. And when the Christ-killer charge finally did come up in my 9th grade parochial school religion class, it was quickly dismissed. The mission of Jesus was to die for the sins of all mankind. Judas, the Jews, the Romans, all were simply instruments of God's will (and yes, a wise nun and bunch of 14-year-olds came to the same conclusions as the Gospel of Judas).

I have since matured into a born-again atheist, and although I used to be merely impatient with Jew-haters, they've begun to scare the bejeezus out of me. They've gone from a discredited minority huddling under rocks after the Holocaust to much more prominent ulcers on the body politic.

This is a bad thing.

I'd like to swim in the inviting ocean of Schadenfreude. But no.

The damage done to our country by this mutant version of the GOP is profound and probably beyond repair. I have a sick feeling that future histories will read, "On December 12, 2000, the decline and fall of the United States of America began."

"Less than a month before the invasion, for which his intelligence operation had provided the justifications (later all disproved as sheer disinformation), Wolfowitz was approaching an ecstatic state of being."

"Disinformation?" Why the aversion, at this late date, for the L-word?

Wolfofwitz, Bush, Cheney et al. deliberately, willingly, and with aforethought lied us into this God damned war, and this increasingly hellish Occupation. This has has been stunningly obvious to anyone who has paid attention since 2002.

I could add that I'm utterly soul-sick that I'm alive at the beginning of my country's Decline and Fall, but that would be redundant.

Please explain to me why this is not an impeachable offense?

The first and only time I've seen Steve Dallas's face without the shades.

It's a good face.

Mr. Breathed leaves us not only with an ideal eternal resting place for Opus, but the possibility of redemption for Mr. Dallas.

Works for me.