The people writing in to defend Manjoo congratulate him for refusing to "pander" to the ostensibly unthinking liberals who can't countenance the possibility that the fix wasn't in in Ohio in 2004.

Nonsense.

As those objecting to Manjoo's article have stated ad nauseum, the problem with his "analysis" is not that he won't accept Kennedy's thesis (that there were too many troubling aspects to the 2004 vote to have confidence in its declared outcome) unquestioningly, but rather that he takes an absolutist position (that the election was NOT stolen and that anyone who says otherwise is a LIAR) and then tortures the evidence to "support" his predetermined conclusion.

I am quite confident that if Manjoo had taken a more reasonable and intellectually honest position -- that no one can know for sure whether or not the election was stolen but that troubling circumstances abound -- the responses would have been far less heated.

Finally, the suggestion that the fact that readers are cancelling their subscriptions somehow validates Manjoo's status as a truth-seeker can only be described as a head-first dive through the looking glass. It is entirely legitimate for readers to object to being subjected to right-wing propaganda, which any honest reader will recognize Manjoo's article to be. Salon is not supposed to be "The Limbaugh Letter." If Salon started running essays by Bill O'Reilly and readers cancelled their subscriptions in protest, would that somehow magically prove that Mr. No-Spin-Zone isn't a right-wing hack after all? Sorry, "not a con," but the world doesn't work that way. You aren't automatically proven right by the fact that people disagree with you.

Manjoo's pretending to lament our broken electoral system while continuing to give the Republican political machine a clean bill of ethical, legal and moral health is about as convincing as Bill O'Reilly's insistence that he isn't right-wing. Farhad -- you STILL haven't addressed the issues of the ridiculous "paper weight" requirement; the ballot-shifting in the counting machinery; or most of Blackwell's many other shenanigans. You may be right that none of the GOP dirty tricks Kennedy discusses would have made enough of a difference to change the outcome of the election, but are you truly content to hold the credibility of our government to THAT pathetic standard? To say that we cannot ABSOLUTELY PROVE that Kerry would have won in the absence of Republican treachery is cold comfort for what is supposed to be a functioning democracy.

No, I'm not going to cancel my subscription to Salon -- it still provides enough good reporting and good writing from others to make it worth sticking around. But I'm disappointed that the editors continue to assign important political stories to a dittohead.

Of course, even if all the exit polls show Strickland with a double-digit lead and Blackwell still pulls off some kind of miraculous out-of-nowhere "victory," Farhad Manjoo will be ready to jump into the breach, tell us that everything's hunky-dory and try to lull us all to sleep with a gentle chorus of "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

I really, really, really would like to believe that Specter won't cave in to the Bush administration this time, but to hope for such a thing at this point is to cross the line from optimism into blind naivete. It is simply not reasonable, based upon past history, to believe that Specter will ever place principle above his desire not to displease George W. Bush. Time and time again, he responds to each new administration outrage at first by talking tough, but in the end he always backs down. If Bush were to declare martial law and announce that he was disbanding the other two branches of the federal government, Specter would probably complain for about 15 minutes and then clean out his desk. His spine is made of Jello.

Camille Paglia is an intellectual like Christopher Hitchens is a teetotaler. She tries to insulate herself against criticism by always claiming that she's a Democrat, but that's bullshit. In every interview, all she can do is spew hatred at Democrats and liberals while praising Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing charlatans. Paglia is a pseudo-intellectual dittohead of below-average intelligence and far-below-average integrity who has become famous not for her would-be intellectual acumen but rather for her relentless self-promotion. She belongs in that rare class of persons such as Hitchens, Dr. Joyce Brothers and Geraldo Rivera -- people who will do or say anything, no matter how cynical or crass or dishonest, to call attention to themselves. Screw you, Paglia -- you never fooled me, you right-wing toady.

Eric Meyer

Nice try, Camille, but everyone who has ever read your writing or heard you interviewed knows that you're a dittohead in Democrat's clothing. In your heart of hearts, you're suffering today, because your beloved Republicans lost. Go sell your faux feminism and pseudo-liberalism somewhere else. The real progressives don't need interlopers.

When I read the headline for this post, I assumed it would be a letter from someone who had long been toiling in a soul-destroying job with an abusive boss and who had been unable to walk away from miserable employment because she or he had responsibilities to a family. Instead, it turns out to be a letter from a spoiled brat who finds his job insufficiently thrilling and who resents his inability to go jet-setting around the world on a moment's notice. Boo hoo. Hey, Sonny -- perhaps someday you'll get the backs of your ears dry and you'll realize how lucky you were to have a job in which you were treated with respect and dignity and were afforded a relatively high degree of personal freedom. Apparently Mommy and Daddy forgot to tell you that the world doesn't exist for your amusement. You have a lot of growing up to do.