Neither Feingold, who makes my liberal heart go pitty-pat, nor Warner, an able pragmatist I could support, is dealing with the Iraq problem idealistically or pragmatically because they are ignoring some central realities about that Pandora's box we so foolishly opened.

1. Iraq is now an ally of Iran, our declared worst enemy in the region, because we made Iraq safe for Shiite democracy. Ostrich-like, the American news media have largely ignored the speech of the Iraqi foreign minister last week that Iraq supports Iran's nuclear program and disagrees with U.S. policy toward Iran on that issue. (Let's talk another time about why we owe it to Iran to be mellow given our sabotage of their democracy in 1953 and installation of our puppet king.)

2. We are fighting on the Iranian side of the Iraqi civil war.

3. Our best interests would be served by achieving a Shiite-Sunni power deal built into their Constitution with appropriate checks and balances. Then peace would break out and we could withdraw with a modicum of honor, perhaps obscuring that our entry was illegal and immoral.

4. Such a deal might be forced if we told the Shiites we are leaving tomorrow if they didn't get on board.

5. The Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal won't do that because they are being suckered by the Shiites, who tell them of course the U.S. can stay in those 14 bases forever but have no intention of honoring those assurances once the Sunnis are defanged.

6. Our exhausted troops, now on their fourth tour, are disintegrating before our eyes, leading today to Haditha, tomorrow to general collapse.

7. Meanwhile, Afghanistan, the only country where we had a right to go, is in trouble and needs our troops.

The right policy is thus midway between Feingold and Warner: threaten to withdraw now unless concessions to the Sunnis are made, and then commit to a short withdrawal timetable immediately upon that deal being cut; or failing such a deal, implement the timetable anyway and let the civil war settle things. Sometimes civil wars are necessary. We know that better than anyone.

Doug Wilson

Naples, Florida

As one who despairs of what passes for mainstream journalism these days, I think it may turn out to be crucial for our democracy, and its present vulnerability to fascism by default, that the blogosphere be solidly reliable and credible.

Truthout does a great job of passing on many important stories, most of them authored by mainstream journalists, but when it comes to hard-hitting factual reporting and analysis done by themselves, they are Not Ready For Prime Time. You are exactly right to take them to task to the extent that they can't back up what they reported.

But as someone noted the other day, the prosecutor hasn't spoken yet. When he does, there may be a surprise.

That's how your headline should read. Political parties don't dump people who have left the party to run as independents -- the new independent has dumped the party. The concept of party means that if you lose a primary election, you soldier on in support of the party.

Lieberman has every right to try to hang onto his Senate seat, but if he does so outside the party, it is not likely the party will thereafter give him a lot of support.

And let it be remembered that Mr. Lieberman has only himself to thank for his predicament. He represents a constitutency that wants the U.S. to be peaceful and a good neighbor in the world, yet he is still a strong supporter of the Iraq war, which a solid majority of his constituents now think was wrong in its inception and has become a disaster.

If you vote against what your constituents want, update your retirement plans.

Salon trivializes Bill Bennett's views at its peril. He is talking an American brand of fascism, and one of these days the gutless liberal media, assuming they can focus on the issue for longer than 90 seconds, will somehow summon up the courage to start discussing what fascism is and how the concept relates to things that happen in America.

It amazes me how few people know what I mean when I refer to the John Birch Society. They were the rabid rightwingers and quasi-fascists who 50 years ago said that Dwight Eisenhower was a conscious agent of the communist conspiracy in America, and he ought to be impeached and locked up. And back then they were seen as so marginal in American politics that there were no political jokes about them.

Their spiritual descendants, through Rovian demagoguery, a partnership with the business community, the best propaganda money can buy, and a little election-stealing, are now running the country.

All the businessmen want is to write statutes giving them good deals at the expense of the public interest, not fully realizing that they are giving license to the kinds of politicopsychopaths that want to drop a nuclear weapon on Iran.

I do wish one of the people at the Meet the Press roundtable had said to him at some point, "Wanna bet?" That this corpulent gambling addict preaches to the nation about right and wrong deserves that kind of jab.