My wife and I are huge FNL fans, and we are extremely distressed at the start to this season. I'm more concerned about what they've done to Lyla than the subplot with Landry and Tyra. It just seems so arbitrary for her to have joined the Campus Crusade, and she is not convincing as an intolerant bigot. Plus we have Riggins mooning around her all the time and this weird "saint/devil" thing going on. On top of that, Jason thinks he's going to walk again--sheesh! The wonderful thing about the first season was that the situations were so real, the writing was smart and the acting natural. They've lost all of that in the first two episodes. I just hope that they can get it back.

Why we care so much whether a baseball player uses some "performance-enhancing drugs" but not others? Surely ball players use all kinds of drugs, prescription and non-prescription, to help get through a 162 game season.

Is it because steroids and HGH are bad for you? I think these guys are mature enough to make decisions about what they put into their bodies. Is it because they give players using them an "unfair" advantage? I've never read anything that purports to quantify what that advantage is-do they help more than a cortisone shot, anti-inflammatory drugs, or any other medication that a player might take?

Undoubtedly the reasons why Barry Bonds has been singled out by the media and by many fans are complex. To deny that race is among them is just silly. It's not just that he is a black man; he is the kind of black man--solitary, angry, doesn't care what you think, doesn't suck up to the press or anyone else--that the establishment and, apparently, many fans hate.

Joan, I don't get it. How does Bill Kristol on the op-ed page (as opposed to Safire, who worked for Nixon, for crying out load, or Brooks, who's just an idiot, imho) affect the reliability of the Times' news reporting? I would think that nothing on the editorial page -- much less a weekly columnist -- would hsve any impact whatsoever on the news content. If the Times wants to be able to say that it has more balanceon its opinion page, so what? I used to cringe at every Abe Rosenthal column on Israel, but he didn't make the rest of tge paper less (or more0 worth reading.

Joan--

I've had some experience working for a state-wide elected official with a reputation for being extremely tough on the industry he regulated, so perhaps I can provide some insight into how a President Edwards could (and should) do it. My boss took very aggressive public positions, using rhetoric much like Edwards'. He would then send his staff out to meet and negotiate with all of the stakeholders--industry, consumer groups, etc. It was always clear that any deal would have to be consistent with his principles, and that he was always willing to have us walk away from the table if we couldn't get something acceptable.

So--be willing to compromise on the details, recognizing that there is more than one way to achieve a particular goal. At the same time, reject compromises that are inconsistent with the core policy goals. The elected official should be the one to state clearly and forcefully what those policy goals are, while leaving the negotiating and, when necessary, compromising, to his or her staff.

I hope that the reason that the story about Obama mimicing Deval Patrick's words and cadence hasn't had much "traction" is that most of the electorate doesn't care about it. They care that we are in a senseless war. They care that our economy is fragile and getting worse. They care that we have had an administration for seven plus years that has tortured, that has violated our civil rights and liberties, that has favored the rich over the rest of the country, that has done nothing while our environment and climate continue to deteriorate, that has made our relations with much of the rest of the world perhaps as bad as they have ever been.

They are struggling, as best they can through this messy, imperfect process, to decide who they think will be best able to do better, to address these problems and the new ones that will come along in the next four years that we don't even know about. They recognize that this "issue" is really just trivial when put in this context.

BTW, what Joe Biden did and what Obama did are completely different. Biden didn't just "plagiarize" someone else's speech or borrow someone else's words. He related intensely personal experiences of another person as if they had happened to him, when they hadn't. In other words, he lied. To compare that to what Obama did is unfair and inaccurate.

Where's the evidence that attacking something a candidate's wife said affects who people vote for?

Where's the evidence that the Swift Boat attacks are what caused Kerry to lose (by a very small margin, in Ohio), rather than the fact that he offered no distinct difference in policy on a crucial issue, the war?

I truly believe that most voters want change. My evidence for this is that this is what they are telling pollsters. This election is going to be about which candidate voters feel will best bring about the kind of change they want (which is a fairly amorphous concept). And about whether they are willing to take a chance on a young and relatively untested Obama.