Carrying out the demonstrated wishes of the electorate is an excuse that was used by people like Richard Nixon, Newt Gingrich and George Bush for their actions.

a) this is largely horseshit. Nixon and Bush have been notorious for dismissing the desires of the electorate, when placed against the desires of the President.

b) apparently the premise is that, because others have lied in their promises about "carrying out the wishes of the electorate", the present attitude towards government shouldn't even bother to try.

Elected officials of conscience need to consider all viewpoints and then do what they think is right, not what is perceived as politically correct at the moment.

No, elected officials need not "consider all viewpoints". They should consider the viewpoints of the people who helped them get elected. That's how democratic republics are supposed to work. The argument that Democratic congresspeople should consider the viewpoints of Republicans is profoundly silly.

The Republican senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Spector, (sic)

has done that frequently, and it's one reason he keeps winning in what otherwise has become a Blue state.

Specter is your model for an ideal legislator? Well that explains a lot.

Specter never actually accomplishes anything, does he? He goes on TV and poses and wrings his hands about how the Bush administration is taking too many powers, but he never used his power as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee to actually stop anything, did he? He's also notorious for criticizing a recent surveillance bill as "unconstitutional" and then proceeding to vote for it.

So far, you appear to be continuing in the proud tradition of "concern troll", who worries that liberals cannot actually take power in the US and should be content to permanently be an abused minority in a conservative-dominated government. This kind of belief in self-immolation as a political strategy belies historical short-sightedness that thinks everything important in the history of politics happened in the past 20 years.

Politics really is not a game that can be easily fit on a left-right axis where the "center" will inevitably win. The history of politics and the intellectual development of different schools of thought is far more complex than that. Rather than viewing the history of political thought as a simple back-and-forth between competing ideas, I think it is far more accurate to view the competition through the lens of evolution. Some ideas are eventually discarded as outmoded and outdated, and replaced by newer ideas as time goes on.

My former Salon colleague Farhad Manjoo endeared himself to many, many readers (that's a joke!) by scrutinizing the cases for fraud made by Kennedy and Miller, among others, and finding them flimsy. Fadiman never even acknowledges, let alone addresses, the counter-arguments raised by Manjoo, pollster Mark Blumenthal, investigative journalist Mark Hertsgaard and many others. That's why I describe her film as propaganda, and why I haven't called it a documentary

That's funny. I called Manjoo's article "drivel", and it never would have occurred to me that ignoring his nonsense would alone qualify a documentary to be called "propaganda".

I think it's lovely that Salon chose as its representative letter for the week a whine from a concern troll who finds space to bash PZ Myers but doesn't address the basic, flawed premise of this article, namely that science itself is a religion.

Karl Giberson has provided us with an excellent example of the fallacy known as "begging the question". Rather than bother to actually demonstrate that atheistic scientists like PZ Myers think along religious lines, or are using science as a substitute for religion, he simply declares it to be true, and repeatedly uses reinforcing, derogatory language to support his presumption.

I'm wondering when, if ever, Salon will give equal space to somebody explaining the atheistic viewpoint. Because Salon sure is giving anti-atheists plenty of space to push their arrogant scorn.

At some point, somebody ought to investigate and prosecute Republicans in spite of the (apparently exonerating) reality that a large number of Republicans suffer cognitive dissonance when confronted with the possibility that members of their own party have committed crimes.

Whining about partisanship should not in any way deter a President from enforcing the law. Indeed, willingness to prosecute high crimes that have been committed is a sign of strength.

The current generation of political leaders seem to have completely lost any sight of the fact that there is a reality underlying all actions. It often seems that this generation cannot tell between rightful prosecution and wrongful prosecution. How else do we understand a party leadership that sits by while a member of their party and a governor of a state (Don Siegelman in Alabama) is indicted based on the testimony of a known liar, while administration officials repeatedly lie to Congress, violate laws left and right, and generally mock the rule of law.

It seems the Democratic leaders are still so whipped by the Gingrich years that they are afraid of offending the most rabid Republicans. It is really bizarre to live in a nation where the actions and desires of the most rabid Republicans are the determining factor for not only what their own party does, but what the opposition party does, too.

Here's a crazy idea. If the Democrats win the White House and control massive majorities in both Houses of Congress after the 2008 election, perhaps they shouldn't give a damn whether Republicans "perceive" legitimate investigations as a "witch hunt". At this point, we know that real crimes have been committed. The only question is who knew what and did exactly what when?