I'm inclined to agree with Ms. Traister. As admirable as it is for a mother to mount the hurdles of entering or re-entering the workforce after managing a household, and as great it would be for such parental experiences to be reconized by industry, I hardly see how Caroline Kennedy's experiences compare with almost any other such woman's. Kennedy may benefit from the extraordinary opportunity to only have to make her case to Gov. Patterson rather than the voters of New York, but surely this ought not be the exemplar for such "opting in".

Mrs. Kennedy ought to be out there persuading would-be voters, rather than making vague statements that reveal little of how she'll represent her constituency. Does she have any insight into New York outsight of Manhattan? Perhaps it's due to me not living in NY any longer, but she doesn't seem to have demonstrated it.

Gov. Patterson, himself barely elected (taking the reigns for the quickly disgraced Eliot Spitzer), should also be keeping in mind the interests of the voters- not in a patronizing "I know what's best for them" way, but in a "what does my constituency want?" way.

In short, whoever the eventual appointee is, they should be selected on their political merits, not "flashdanced" into office because they bring a shiny family legacy (or the promise of substantial campaign funds) to the table.

I hope that states see the folly of investing this much power into the hands of a single individual (look at the mess in Illinois) and reform their processes to at least involve the consent of the legislature when filling senate seats.

Mr. Kamiya makes a few good points in his piece, but unfortunately he surrounds them with the same ole anti-Israeli rhetoric that we get to hear from the pro-Palestinian side whenever there is a flare up.

He makes an appeal for pragmatism, which is certainly called for by all parties involved, but most of his article is spent discussing Israel's "founding myths" as if that was even relevant to the discussion.

For example:

The problem is political and historical: the dispossession of Palestinians and the ongoing Israeli occupation of their land.

Well, there you have it, don't you? If the problem is ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the only reasonable way to solve that problem is to evict the Israelis isn't it? I can't understand why the Israelis would not take the perfectly reasonable approach of nullifying their state and handing it over to the Arabs (note that the elected leaders of the PA, Hamas, claim all of Israel as Palestinian land, not just the '48 or '67 borders).

Getting into who did what over 60 years ago is no longer germane to the issue. We can all sit around and debate whether Israel's founding was legitimate until we're blue in the face, but unless/until the anti-Israeli forces have enough power to actually wipe Israel off the map as they like to say, such will just remain a pipe dream for them- a pipe dream that justifies all manners of atrocities and will forever block any real progress toward lasting peace. The Hatfields and the McCoys can each sulk about what injustices the other family has done, but it will never get them anywhere but dead.

The Israelis, for their part, also have to face the facts. Mr. Kamiya is correct that peace (and security) will not be won through militarism. However, neither will it be won by raising old questions about the legitimacy of the state.

What would America do if a militaristic Native American group were firing rockets into American cities (whether or not they caused casualties)? Well, we'd wipe them out, for better or worse. In fact, alter the time period, revert the technology, and you need not pose it as a hypothetical. That's exactly what we did. It may not have been humane (it certainly was not), it may not have justified, but that's what happened.

The Palestinians, however, as Mr. Kamiya points out, have somewhat better prospects than basing their future income on Israeli gambling and taste for nicotine. The question is, will they act on this opportunity, or will they continue to hold out hope of some future pan-Arab salvation that never materializes, while their children die either by Israeli bombs that drop on their towns or Iranian bombs that are strapped to their chests?

Neither Israel nor the Palestinians are going anywhere for a while, and until both sides return to the table with a realistic view toward negotiations, nothing will be accomplished but more bloodshed, and history indicates most of the blood shed will be that of the hapless Palestinians.

As bad as the opium trade may be in Afghanistan, and as much as it might threaten the fledgling democracy we've put there- we have no business interjecting our military forces into a battle over the drug trade.

Where direct ties to Taliban militants can be established, then it *might* be justifiable to go after them, but otherwise, we should be focusing on trying to build up Afghanistan's own police and military forces in order to defend the government, and the politicians there can decide how best to handle the opium trade.

With the increasing problems sprouting up in our Afghanistan mission, we don't need to be crossing it with the disastrous War on Drugs that has accomplished nothing positive after decades here in the US.

Corruption in Afghanistan leadership is unfortunate- though not entirely unpredictable. It may be in our interest for it to be rooted out over time, but it is not in our interest to appear to be doing this directly through heavy-handed approaches (especially military).

Except where the drug traffic directly threatens our immediate interests there (which is containing international terrorism, in case anyone forgot), we should focus on uses of soft power to help the decent, indigenous folks there who want to make a difference.