You seemed to like Keith Olbermann's call for the resignation of the tyrants who have commandeered our republic. A very important point he made, with respect to Richard Nixon, is that a point can arrive when patriotic duty trumps the needs of partisan politics.

With respect to the crimes of the Bush Administration against our republic and its Constitution, that time has arrived.

You reprinted this without comment, yet in your next blog entry you argue against impeachment on the grounds that it would cost too much "political capital."

In this piece, Olbermann argued that on rare occasions patriotic duty must trump the needs of partisan politics. Even if it is risky, and despite the cost, we must do something. What are you willing to support? If not impeachment, will you support censure of the President? Would you support impeachment of cabinet officers? Or shall we simply email each other our favorite Bush-criticizing editorial pieces for the next 18 months while the crimes continue, feeling self-satisfied and right while doing nothing about the situation?

Does Alicia Silverstone give Americans any information about the damage done by the scale of our meat economy? Or has PETA stooped to adolescent peer pressure tactics, exploiting sexuality to shame people who eat animals?

It is no surprise, for PETA has often demonstrated that they think little of their audience, and do not value human life or dignity as highly as extending civil liberties to cows. (For instance, their repeated failure to denounce acts of violence by more militant groups.)

There are good reasons to try a vegetarian regimen, or to reduce dependence on meat, that have to do with self-respect, not winning the affections of a pinup girl.

"Don't interrupt me while I'm refusing to answer your question! Let me finish not-answering your question."

Oh, very Presidential.

The problem is, the Democrats are soft on tyranny.

Like you said, Joan, the core of corruption begins at the top of this administration, and the rot spreads down.

The interaction of the press corps and the press secretary has mostly lost my interest along the way. Under Scott it was an exercise in which the press would try to obtain information from him, and watching Scott stick to his scripted non-informational answers became a sort of sport.

With Tony, the sport was slightly more sophisticated. We got to watch a man who was very good with words deconstruct the questions themselves and avoid giving information that way.

Next to these talented goalies, Dana is worse than light beer, ineptly blending traits of both her predecessors with her own prep school key club president demeanor. But so what? It isn't as if the discourse can degrade any further. They weren't telling us anything before, and they won't tell us anything now.

Senator Clinton's vote was not a mistake. She knew what she was voting on; she knew what you and I knew five years ago, and perhaps even more. It is preposterous to suppose she trusted President Bush to keep his word, knowing there were troubling questions about the use of intelligence and the hamfisted efforts to link Iraq to what happened on September 11.

Her vote was informed and intelligent. She wasn't blindsided or duped. She voted for the authorization for reasons that probably seemed better in 2002 than they do now.

To call her vote a mistake is as preposterous as Larry Craig trying to "take back" his guilty plea.

Finally, they found a press secretary who makes this president seem - scholarly.

Dennis Kucinich says that much, for crying out loud. It seems to be de rigeur that a serious candidate never admit the possibility they will not prevail. It's silly, in my humble, but it seems petty to single Hillary out for this.

"Even in 2000, when he made his strongest (and most disastrous) showing..."

The disaster, I presume, is that in a three-way election for Florida's electoral votes, the candidate Joe Conason did not favour officially took the state.

Elections are like that. Sometimes the candidate you like doesn't win. That's true of 2-way elections, 3-way elections, and so on.

That is not in itself a disaster. It is democracy.

My response to this, Joan, is similar to my response to Joe Conason, whose piece was marred by an anti-democratic fallacy.

Even if we accept that Mr. Nader and Mr. Gonzalez are not an attractive ticket (they won't get my vote), even if we accept that Mr. Nader's campaign is quixotic and unlikely to make a meaningful difference in the election, and even if we accept that they would present more competition for the Democratic party than the Republican party, I see no reason to be outraged.

Mr. Nader has every right to run for the office of President and solicit support for his campaign. The only reason I see between the lines here (or in Joe's piece) for abridging that right, is that he might pull votes from a candidate you like better.

Well, I'm sorry, but that's not an outrage or, as Joe Conason called it, a disaster. Not in and of itself. It is democracy. Leave Ralph alone. Donate to the candidate of your choice, talk them up, and vote for them. Let us have more choice and competition, let us have a real debate, and may the best candidate win.

It's diabolical and Rovian, and it works: by accusing her opponent of going negative, Senator Clinton is able to go negative while looking positive. This has been her tactic going back to the days when she accused Obama of abandoning the politics of hope because he criticized her legislative record.

As you say, some of us - I would say a lot of us - knew not to take the President at his word in 2002. Senator Clinton voted the way she did anyway. Maybe she refuses to admit her mistake because it was no mistake. That has been nagging at me for quite some time now.