The army continually comes up with awkward monikers and dumb acronyms to distract from what something is: If you have a vehicle with no windows, access through an armored hatch, and caterpillar treads that roll over curbs and chip them, it's a tank. Insisting lay people use military speak makes you sound like a prat, a liar, or both.

Rolling tanks through a city is a clear way to tell people they're occupied by a military power and their country is not their own. And they will rightfully resent it.

We need to get out and let the Iraqis go about the business of cleaning up the horrific damage we've inflicted. Our continued presence is helping nothing except the ego of our delusional President and others like him.

Dr. Rahul,

To a certain question in your letter, that of what Indy would have really eaten, um...have you ever taken a look at any 1940s or 50s cookbooks?

If Lucas wants to come full circle, the Indy of the 50s should be endorsing Mel's Drive-in, a la American Graffiti, and its far larger, more substantial, and I'm certain calorie-laden burgers than whatever little snack Burger King is hocking. Mel's is still around, by the way, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had their own Indy tie-in.

The trouble is not that Indy's face is used to peddle junk food, but that most American kids are too sedentary and aren't doing enough to burn up those extra calories.

My niece and nephew both eat far more junk food than I think they should, but they're both slim and healthy because they are both active in sports and have numerous trophies for skiing and snowboarding.

If you want children to not be so fat, the key ingredient is physical activity.

Speaking as someone who voted for Clinton in the primary and still would prefer her, I can understand the strategy. Kathleen Sebelius came across my radar when then Democrats tapped her to give the Democratic rebuttal to one of the State of the Union addresses, and apart from her grating repetition of the word "Heartland" (a vice shared by Midwestern politicians from both parties, I might add), she sounded keen, intelligent, and new-generation.

While Clinton has a lot of great qualities, she would definitely muddy the "Change" message of Obama. And while I think she and Obama could work together well, it's quite likely that he and Sebelius would work together better, and at the beginning and end of the day, what's important is to have a team that performs well.

However, at this point I don't much care. So long as he beats McCain, I'd be happy with Obama picking the proverbial yellow dog as his running mate.

This was a calculated and fairly canny move by McCain. In addition to the other perks Palin adds to his ticket, she also has a son in the military who's being deployed to Iraq on the suspiciously significant date of September 11th, and from the sound of things, Palin's son is more regular enlisted than Biden's son the JAG lawyer. This, for the most part, upstages anything Biden may have to say on the subject.

Palin may pick up a few Yellow Dog Feminists who wanted to vote for a woman--any woman--and there'll be a few who'll obligingly mug for the camera, but for the most part, she's there to appeal to the pro-life Christian types and the NRA enthusiasts, and she appears to be doing that quite well.

As for having a special needs child, from what was shown on camera, and even discussed by FOX, her husband is a stay-at-home dad, and liberals will be shooting themselves in the foot if they question his competence or even simple right to care for his own child while his wife takes care of her career and the family fortunes.

Palin's inexperience is her weakness, but as Republican tools go, she appears to be a sharper one than Dan Quayle, or for that matter, even W himself. The debates should be interesting at least.

@Juliebird--

I'm not disagreeing with you about Palin's many blanket endorsements of Bush policies, her willingness to drill for oil anywhere, her desire for Creationism in public schools, or any of the other things I find disturbing and objectionable. What I'm talking about is whether she "seems sharp" or not, meaning whether she's prone to saying "nukular" or spelling "potato" with an extra "e" at the end, a la Bush and Quayle.

It's not the question of whether she's an idiot or at least someone with addled thinking, but whether she gives that impression and can hold her own in a debate.

It's a fleeting impression I gained from watching her being interviewed and speaking for five minutes on television, not a lengthy analysis of her past writings or interviews. Before this morning, I didn't even know she existed, beyond assuming that Alaska had a governor, not that I knew who that was. Now I do. And on a relative scale, I can say that she "seems sharper" than Bush or Quayle, and will probably embarrass the GOP less in the debates, relatively speaking.

However, I also noticed a fairly large rhetorical opening she left for Hilary to give a rebuttal, which is I assume will be taken, because Clinton is exceptionally sharp and is going to do what she can to get Obama elected.