It's not enough that there be a lot of women involved in committees and forums and public office. They need to be running things. The most damaging chemical in the world is testosterone. It has led to senseless wars throughout human existence, and excessive competition and greed and dominion over others for its own sake.

I want women to be in charge of things. The countries of the world who have had women as leaders have invariably followed policies that were more moderate than the panting males around those leaders. They are much more reluctant to see people killed or harmed, they are more likely to support the nurturing of their people in many ways, to promote the flowering of human potential and the general happiness of their people. And they are much more likely to make their nations good neighbors in the world.

The only problem is that this benign difference in the sexes also makes them less likely to seek power. Ambition, at least the ruthless kind, thrives on testosterone (allowing for the occasional scheming empress wannabe. There are lots of goal-focused women of ambition, just not enough of them. We also need the self-effacing women of talent. The solution is to find those capable women and convince them they are needed.

We still need men, of course. They can be quite effective in many areas. But they bear watching.

I am a 64-year-old white male who has seen too many pre-emptive wars based on imaginary threats, and other grand schemes gone bad.

First, it's not at all clear to me that Hackett was pressed to run for the Senate by the Democratic Party, and I get the impression they discouraged him early on. You should elaborate on those facts or recede from the assertion. It IS clear that he began running right after his defeat for the House seat he competed well for, and immediately began using his national fundraising group for that purpose right away. I know, because I donated right away.

In any case, his Democratic opponent for the Senate race has raised ten times as much money, had won several elections to Congress, has the support of statewide Democrats, and is way ahead of Hatchett in the polls. For the party to suggest in these circumstances that Hatchett should not debilitate its resources and image, in a state where it's hard for Democrats to win at all, is not irrational.

It was Hatchett's response that put me off. He could have accepted the party's advice and kept his mouth shut, or he could have ignored it and run anyway. But he did neither, because he was pressing them for a cut of resources. For him then to drop out AND badmouth the party, in a display of pissy petulance made because he didn't get his way, is unprofessional, childish and disloyal. He's out of politics, all right. He's made himself radioactive.

Clearly, this is a woman who does not experience pleasure in sex at this point. "Grossed out" and "bored" are not the words of a woman who is getting rocked by recurrent orgasms for an hour. And when she stops dating, it's not really the men she misses, but their "attention". Not a word of a prior marriage or committed relationship in her letter. She's a bit of a narcissist, isn't she? So, how to get that never-ending stream of charming men who can be dumped the instant the boredom starts to set in, like some romantic migrane? She might try a personals ad: "Sexually dried-up prune with hot exterior seeks slightly masochistic charmers who enjoy the blue stonies and long-drop rejection. No farting allowed." It might work.

Michael Scherer poses the question, Who is right, purely in political terms. The reason Feingold is right is that his motion is supported by a great deal of clear evidence, much of it out of Bush's own mouth, that he has been hijacking the Constitution on several fronts and therefore grossly violating his Constitutional oath.

In short, Feingold is right because he is factually and legally correct. In that case, the question is not whether he is self-aggrandizing or politically stupid, but why many more Senators are not joining him.

Indeed, there is a good case to be made that he's a wimp for not going all the way to an impeachment resolution. At least he agreed with the blogger that Bush's conduct is worse than Nixon's, which it certainly is, and that implies that impeachment is clearly within range of the known facts.

The amazing thing to me is that Democratic voters are way ahead of their "leaders" in all this. It's not just the bloggers and zealots who are supporting impeachment, it's a solid majority of the whole party, and close to a majority of the entire electorate. Democracy is once again dragging its representatives along by the scruff of their necks. It doesn't say a lot for the representatives.

Douglas L. Wilson

Naples, Florida

Tim Grieve asks excellent questions in pulling apart the latest baloney sandwich served up by the White House in the Plame matter.

But everybody is overlooking the mundane but crucial detail: there is ALWAYS a piece of paper documenting action on classification issues, to classify, to declassify, to destroy classified documents -- every corner of the bureaucracy has tight rules on this, even the White House. Forms must be filled out and kept for years.

So, if the leaked NIE was declassified, where's the paper that says so? And if it is a declassification paper, it has got to be unclassified itself, along with the material declassified, right? So who is doing the FOI request for these things?

I think about a million of us should.

Doug Wilson

Naples, Florida