Dear Editor:

With some exceptions, the most notable "knucklehead" senators represent very small and not-at-all densely populated states. These senators, because of the seniority system, usually have a dispraportionate amound of power in the U.S. political system, 1. Because their seniority gives them chairmanship of powerful committees, and 2. Because often the states that they represent have small populations, in some cases, less than 500,000. Examples of this sort of senator are best embodied by Max Bacus of Montana, Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Charles Grassley of Iowa. Just who are they to have so much power over the fate of health care and insurance policy in the United States? I have one word, and it isn't really very laudable in this context: The Constitution.

All of this talk about "compromise" is really to appease a few senators from a few not-very-populated states. The original proposal could always, and can still be always, passed in the House of Representatives. In other words, the large, wealthier, more developed, more populated, and more educated states are held hostage to the political proclivities or corruptions of a few tiny and poor states. Dispraportional representation: "constitutional" but hardly democratic at all.

Arthur C. Hurwitz

I think that, instead of allowing people of the same gender to marry, a real overhaul and much more substantiative improvement would allow people to negotiate legally what ever sort of personal relationships want or need. Instead of a one size fits all "marriage," people would be free and be obliged to negotiate different sort of interpersonal relationships based on what they want and what they need. In this system, two men, two women, a man and a woman, two woman and one man, three men, etc. would be free to established customized interpersonal and financial relationships through professionals which could be lawyers or clergy or some sort of new occupation, "personal status consultants" or whatever.

This would separate the religious question from the legal questions. Organized religious institutions would be free to define "marriage" based on whatever sort of criterion they deem correct, i.e. the right-wing and traditional churches (or synagogues or mosques or whatever..) could define marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman but others could have there own sort of legal agreements and contracts. This approach would also prevent problematic marriages as we know them, i.e. people marrying without really understanding what the relationship is going to demand of them as now all of this would be negotiated up front and before tying the knot so to speak. It would also revitalize certain religious traditions, the Jewish Kutubah or the Muslim Kitaba, the marriage contract. Today, in religious Jewish and Muslim weddings, there is a marriage contract, but is it a pro forma ceremonial artifact which lacks any sort of real legal contract which defines the parameters of the relationship. Now, instead, Muslims who marry Muslims and Jews who marry Jews will have to negotiate real marriage contracts which will be legally binding and also religiously binding within the context of the religious ceremony as well. The point being is that there will no longer be quick marriages and there will no longer be surprises as before entering into any sort of legally binding personal relationship, all the terms of responsibility would be defined explicitly in advance and prevent people from finding themselves in relationships which are "over their head."

I respect Juan Cole far more after having read this article of his because it shows that he understands how real policy can be made and has to be made in the real world of Washington D.C. and the interests around it.

Cole understands that a change of policy has to be done slowly and incrementally to avoid controversy and also to avoid confronting the interests which are opposed to these changes in policy. He also understands that whatever Obama is doing, it is preferable to what W. was doing and what McCain would have done.

Nevertheless, the decisive direction of his policies in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is still muddling and ambiguous, like Obama himself. Nevertheless, in whatever way Obama has not lived up to the messianic expectations of his groupie supporters, we should all note that his policies are better than those of Bush, and we should keep that in mind.