Joan, I know exactly what you mean. I'm one of those people who had the big SPRINGSTEEN bumper sticker on the back of my Plymouth Valiant. He's always been able to reach through a world of mess and make the common seem sublime for me; he made it feel very good to sit on the hood of a Dodge drinking warm beer in a soft summer rain.

When the overproduced & badly drummed (but still sometimes great) Born in the USA album came out, I remember him on stage doing the songs much better than they were on the album, and warning both Reagan AND Mondale to stop mentioning him in campaign speeches or he'd come out and tell people what he really thought. They both stopped; I don't know whether this was due to the warning or to somebody realizing that the title track actually isn't a jingoistic anthem.

Anybody who has followed Springsteen's artistic development knows that he's all about societies -- whether teen angst gangs, wives and kids, bandmates, union workers, brothers in arms, groups of immigrants; he's about realizing that your family is out there ready to reach for you if you'll just reach first.

"Well my daddy come on the 0hio works

When he come home from world war two.

Now the yard's just scrap and rubble

He said, "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do."

These mills they built the tanks and bombs

That won this country's wars,

We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam and

Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for"

--Youngstown

... and I forgot to mention that my son is a Army Captain serving now just outside of Bahgdad. He's responsible for the lives of 200 other soldiers. His second child was born a few months ago while he serves. I'm not an idiot -- I care viscerally about the outsourcing of this war, and the war in general. I care very much about the Iraqis and politics. Why else would I be reading Salon?

But I'm also naturally drawn toward the kind of real hope that Bruce Springsteen's art gives me.

So, to spite you I'm afraid, here's another lyric:

"For the ones who had a notion,

a notion deep inside

That it ain't no sin

to be glad you're alive

I wanna find one face

that ain't looking through me

I wanna find one place,

I wanna spit in the face of these badlands"

I do know how to spell -- I was just tripping a little, there!

She brought up the Code Pink protester (Desiree Farooz) when responding to a question about an innocent Canadian whom the US kidnapped and shipped to Syria to be tortured. He was held for a year until Canada was able to get him released. Perino couldn't comment on that because – although the crimes occurred 5 years ago – she hadn't seen Secretary Rice's brief, shrugging, mistakes-were-made blow-off of the topic during the hearing.

In place of addressing that question, though, she went out of her way to say she thinks, based on a PICK-cher she saw, that today's Code Pink protest was "despicable." That's a word that means something should be despised. Indeed, for shame!

I encountered Garry Owen for the first time a few weeks ago, when I signed up and made my first comment to Salon. It was in response to a Joan Walsh post about how Bruce Springsteen's new CD made life a little better on a day when Blackwater atrocities fought to dominate her thoughts. I commented that I like Springsteen, too (BTW Garry, I don't like the new CD much).

Anyway, along comes Garry Owen -- he says people don't care about Iraqis' suffering, they only care about pop culture. I took offense and listed my bona fides.

I guess I also got a little obsessed. Who is this prick? etc. etc., so I read his other letters. I also found the meaning of his user name, which I didn't know before.

In short, I found I like him. It's easy in this forum to get all letter-to-the-editorish, but I think that's a good thing to avoid.

Now, to Glenn Greenwald: PLEASE post an update. We're starving out here.

These euphemisms -- "waterboarding," "the water cure", "simulated drowning" -- they pass blandly over the oddly-smiling lips of the CNN hotties. They might as well be referring to "a time out."

So I suggest another question to the nominee: Is rape torture? I wonder if he'd answer that it depends on the context, that he'd need to study it. Probably he'd change the term to "enhanced lovemaking."

Walker Percy mentioned somewhere (The Moviegoer?) that his grandfather met a KKK grand dragon in a barber shop and challenged him then and there to a duel in the street. Had his father met the man, he'd have denounced him later over dinner. And had he himself met the grand dragon, he'd be wracked with indecision. Today our safe distance from the torture, and our fear, attenuates our reaction. It's disgusting.

I called my Senator about impeachment and was told by a phone-answerer, again, that he won't pursue it because it's a waste of time to try. I asked what the Senator would do if he passed an alley and witnessed a woman being raped. Would he decide against intervening if he was outnumbered?

So to Mr. Mukasey, then: would you grant that rape is always torture? And also: how do you define cowardice?