unfortunately, mccain is - as usual - pandering to his audience: does no one remember his criticisms of his party (on jon stewart's very show) shortly before the 2004 election...swiftly (as in "swift boat..?") followed by allowing gwbush to appear before the air force one press corps (and therefore in front of millions of american voters) with his arms around mccain's neck? which is really too bad, as i admire mccain's repudiation of torture when he repeatedly says "torture simply does not work." (and who would better know?)

thank you, farhad manjoo: please keep telling it like it IS!

as a rhode island voter, i am stunned by the green's endorsement of lincoln chafee - and not too happy about the way salon has reported it, either: chafee's democratic opponent, sheldon whitehouse - as attorney general of rhode island - argued before the supreme court of our country (and won) the largest penalty again environmental polluters in our state's history!!! he has always been pro-environment, and his very wife is also a marine biologist (!!!) and was head of r.i.coastal resources management/her twin sister has been a lawyer for the audubon society; how much more green could sheldon be..? i quite understand those who've said the sierra club can forget about further contributions..! christopher english walling

richard cohen must be having that all-too-familar, "knee-jerk" reaction to matters political and American; it is outrageous to even suggest that there is a single thing wrong with mr. bush finally being forced to listen to the truth - as opposed to the pablum of the many, hand-picked audiences at military bases which have been his usual diet! civil disobedience is a vital cornerstone of American liberty, and anyone who gainsays that...has no understanding of what made and makes America great...

to paraphrase my own much-decorated, ravensbruck-survivor, french mother - after the war - in a fancy munich restaurant when germans sent a maitre d'hotel over to have her silence my crying: "as none of you had the slightest trouble listening to jewish babies on the way to the gas chamber, not only will i not silence my child but - should he stop crying - i will make him start again!"

christopher english walling

i think this article's writer's full disclosure as a rove republican should be insisted on & - if the author has some other party persuasion - he might re-think and re-craft his words in the future. articles like this do nothing except to diminish excellent candidates like sheldon whitehouse and - if shapiro thinks he is being clever - i hope he will remember that he chose to flatter his own ego (and ultimately allow unqualified canidiates to be elected) rather than to promote decent government...when he is indeed stuck with more bush-ite dis-regarders of the constitution, the poor, the rest of the world's nations and populations, the environment, and so forth. to compare chafee and whitehouse is ludicrous to the nth degree; sheldon was not elected and appointed to eminent government positions on his father's coat-tails. anyone who watched the chafee/laffey debate/s heard a dumb, inept and mean-spirited chafee - which are things whitehouse does not remotely have it in him to be.

yours was a series of cheap shots - and not worthy of you.

christopher walling

am i the only one sickened - once again - by the usual preferral to call someone an "alcoholic" (all of a sudden...) rather than "gay?" "alcohol re-hab," indeed: there are re-habs for sexual compulsion (as well as federal prisons), which is/are where mr. foley might better be. at the beginning of the a.i.d.s. crisis, we saw a similarly ugly phenomenon: so many people chosing to pretend people had died of drug-use, alcohol-abuse, transfusions, heart-attacks, pneumonias, etc...anything rather than to remotely & honestly admit than that they might "simply" be lgbt?

cwny.

david gergen's punditry has always seemed suspect to me - and i've heard him "live" & "in person" several times; thank you very, very much for helping to show us show us why!

in which case, will richardson do what dukakis also did: nor consult the major democratic brains and donors, once - after he was nominated..?

as someone who has had the very big honor to regularly hear the great scholar elaine pagels - usually at the aspen institute, as well as to become friends - i find it absolutely outrageous to mention a mis-leading pot-boiler like the da vinci code in the same breath as her name & her work.

to listen to elaine - if one is an agnostic, as i have been - is to amazingly actually find oneself ready to believe again in God: a realistic, extremely intelligent & loving God.

christopher english walling