Hey I just wanted to say that I thought your Olympics coverage has been great. And you're right on about the hockey final-- wow.

Now maybe can we have an article about college basketball this week?

Why the vitriol? It's funny, I'm reading the letters arguing against Mr. O'Hehir and for the most part I find them reasoned and reasonable. There have been plenty of other letters sections that have been much more enflamed than this. I don't see vitriol, and I certainly don't see anything to cause us to question our intellectual capital or emotional stability.

To those who keep asking, yes, I did read the article. And I assume you did to. So here's my question: what evidence, exactly, does Mr. O'Hehir give to suggest that Crash or any of these movies is the product of guilt? How does he know? I think it's one of the greatest acts of intellectual violence to tell someone else what they think, or what their motives are. We're supposed to take it as self-evident that Crash or Good Night and Good Luck are the product of liberal guilt. I mean, it's George Clooney! He's got to just be riddled with it, right?

I don't like people who think that their positions are self evident just because they are so, so clever. It's incredible to me that people are defending this article as a piece of leftist self-criticism. Attacking targets that are so broad and defenseless isn't self-criticism. It's self-promotion. And since some in this space have said that it's the fault of the letter writers who are critical of this article that we lost the election(s), allow me to weigh in myself: the fact that so many people think that simply being funny and intelligently critical is enough to create change has prevented them from working to actually make that change.

If Mr. O'Hehir has problems with the politics of these movies (and I do, too), then I think it's great for him to respond in this space. And if he questions the efficacy of these movies to reach an audience with right wing views, I think there is much to be said. But I think it is better for him and his readers if he does so with a basic assumption of good faith-- if he extends the film maker's the courtesy of recognizing that their beliefs are at least partially honest and real, and not the product of guilt.

I wonder whether many reader's out there think the people who make the Left Behind movies are insincere. I doubt it; I don't, without having any real evidence why. If I assume the worst motives from the Hollyood liberals and the best from the conservative film makers I condescend to both.

I guess what really hurts me is that there is a belief among a lot of younger people of the left wing persuasion that this is the only way to attack what they see around them, through satire.

I mean, look-- I love the Daily Show as much as the next guilt-ridden socialist whiteboy. But the thing is, we can't end at the Daily Show. Satire can't be the final product of a movement of reform. I'm not knocking satire. It's an incredibly important part of our democracy and at times in the last six (twelve?) years it's seemed like all we have.

But I have to say that I meet a lot of other young people, people who are intelligent and passionate and fiercely political, and when I spend time with them I despair. Because they think that the Daily Show (or This Modern World or Get Your War On or whatever else) is the end of political action, instead of the beginning. They see that political commentary, political humor, is funny and emboldening and they think that it alone will change the world. But it won't. It takes more than snark. And if saying that means I'm obtuse, I guess I can live with that.

Up until about eight months ago I was devoting a lot of my time to antiwar activism. I don't claim to ever have been selfless or any kind of a leader but I was trying, with a lot of other people, to make some kind of positive change. And there are many, many things to criticize about the American antiwar movement. Michelle Goldberg has mined those deficiencies for a lot of articles. But as much as the antiwar movement is silly and misguided and frequently maddening, it is an effort to create social change through community action. And that is what has to follow from satire. Satire can't be the end. Michelle Goldberg and John Stewart mocking an antiwar movement that at least superficially they agree with can't be the end.

And I'm sorry if this is yawing pretty far from the content of this article, and I'm sorry if I'm grandstanding (which I'm sure I am). I don't mean to change the subject or demonize Andrew O'hehir. But I honestly believe that the number of young people who stand against the war but won't work to end it because it's uncool is a tragedy of the American left. And sometimes, the above-it-all attitude makes me want to scream.

It's true, Crash is awful.