is all I can say -- not about the Paglia article, which was pretty much what I expected, but the response, especially from your subscribers.

You certainly know how to give your public what it wants. First Broadsheet and Rebecca Traister. We nearly cancelled then (it took a personal plea from Joe Conason to get us to reup), but we figured, how much worse can it get before somebody grows some sense?

Then Deborah Dickerson. More fun letters, of course -- it really says something when letters from outraged subscribers form the best writing on the site. Colbert took care of her, of course -- turns out she doesn't mind slavery at all, as long as she can do the enslaving -- but that won't mean Salon is through with her.

And now this. Why don't you just give Sean Hannity his own column? (I understand Drudge has another commitment.) Not enough of a manbasher, I suppose. Maybe he could alternate with Sandra Bernhard. Or Roseanne.

I have to agree, I liked Paglia somewhat in the '90s too, and a great deal in the '60s, when she made her name irritating feminists. But I can't agree that the general quality of writing has gotten better with the growth of blogging, and Salon, Paglia and their friends bear some of that responsibility. Do we ever need Molly Ivins now. And Mary McGrory.

I'm glad I read the unintentionally funny posting on Allan Shawn because of the brief reference to his ex-wife, Jamaica Kincaid. I wasn't familiar with her, but read the Salon interview from '97. It reminded me of how much deeper Salon was ten years ago. Kincaid's intelligent, witty, self-deprecating interview was fresher than anything Dickerson, Paglia, Walsh herself or the nouveau Salon crew of self-referencing feministas is capable of writing today. Kincaid is still around. But do we get a monthly column from her?

She'd probably be taking up Ann Coulter's space.

He's a classical composer, he's multiphobic, and has a famous father and a brother who's, well, a little odd, too.

And he's a great detective.

Coming next season (that would be middle of July) to USA.

It's said that the soul of a Puritan is motivated by the suspicion that someone, somewhere, is having fun.

And so the left meets the right, in a perfect circle.

Brokeback got nothin' on this.

Richardson works for me, too. He's experienced, eloquent, good on the issues and not from the Northeast. He will add to the gains made in '06, in winning men back to progressive politics. As pleasing as she is to some within the Democratic Party, Hillary will absolutely destroy that, returning the Democrats to where they were in the 80s, when, the mythology goes, they needed to be "rescued" by the DLC. Sounds like a no-lose proposition for them, but not for us.

It's been demonstrated too many times that Democrats have a flair for pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. If that's what you want, then Hillary's your candidate, and you'll do or say anything for her. "Obama's too white." "Richardson's too white." "Only white men can win, so we need to run an upperclass white woman, not these nonwhite guys who are really white, so I hate them."

Doesn't make any sense to me, but racial and sexual politics never does. Just the issues, please, an idea that's as foreign to Dickerson as a white, black, or mixed, man from Africa.

Is this Dickerson's real coded message? "Support a loser, because if we win, I won't have my head-banging wall, and there goes my career."

One more bit of sexism and racism from Dickerson. We know she's anti-male, and fashionably anti-white (which means she excepts members of her private Salon). Now add to that anti-black-American-of-recent-African-descent.

If the "son of a Kenyan goat herder" wasn't enough of a tipoff, (anyone who's followed Obama knows that his father ended his career as a high-placed official in the Kenyan government), later in the article she spells it out: only the descendents of slaves are true American blacks.

This feeling is suprisingly prevalent in some parts of the American black community, along with the idea that more recent nonwhite immigrant groups (Asians, Hispanics) dilute the civil rights pool.

It also explains her reference to Jackson's and, especially, Sharpton's "faux high hat." Just wait until Sharpton does to Obama what he did to Howard Dean at the last Iowa Caucus debate in 04. That, not the media's cooked-up "scream," was the end of the Dean campaign.

If Dickerson was as committed to telling it like it is as she pretends, she would judge both candidates on their merits. We certainly know Clinton: pro NAFTA and CAFTA, pro-WTO, pro-DLC. Now there are some bills and groups that have certainly done a lot for the blacks, and everyone else, in this country.

Obama has yet to be judged, except by Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Clinton supporters. Now there's a family to be part of. Dickerson deserves to be judged as she's revealed herself: Salon's reverse-bigot lapdog.

The letter writers on this artlcle must be channelling each other. After I sent my first, I read the most recent postings, all written at approximately the same time as mine. I am not Pegasus or the author of the anonymous letter that comes before, but it sounds like I could be.

One common thread seems to be the number of critical responses from people, like myself, who have had experience as editors. This article has really stirred something up, and it's not favorable to Salon.