Maybe the rapist was a known local hoodlum. Maybe the onlookers believed that if they intervened they were risking future violence happening to them or theirs.

Think about it, this guy was raping a woman in public. Maybe he had a reason to believe that he would be safe from intervention. Maybe he had done something like this before, and people had tried to intervene, only to receive retribution at some later time. This fits in with a man walking up to view the situation, realizing who the attacker was, and putting up his hood to try and hide his identity from the attacker to stay safe in the future.

I have encountered situations of witnessing an attack twice in the past, and risked personal injury to atempt rescue. Fortunately for me both times, being a large yelling man has been all it took to defuse the situation.

But I don't know how I would react if I knew who the attacker was, and knew that getting involved would threaten my family. I have lived in a dangerous environment before, but a crisis situation never arose that I witnessed, so I never had to make such a decision.

I am not trying to make any excuses for anyone. I am just trying to come up with an explanation for what is an otherwise incomprehensible occurrance.

I bet there will be people of the Muslim faith, and people of the thought police faith who deride Breathed for this strip.

So you are a drug user. Take the ramrod out of your ass, and stop being such a hyprcrite.

If you can't be honest with yourself about your own drug use, dump the girl, and be prepared for an unhappy life.

The most bizarre part of this whole issue is the large number of posters who say that the LW is right to think drug use is wrong, while ignoring his admitted drug use.

Are these people denying that alcohol is a drug? Or are these people using the term "drug" to mean "illegal drug" and omitting alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine from the definition of the word?

If preteens are going to be wearing clothes that 15 years ago would only have been seen on prostitutes, what are the prostitutes going to wear to differentiate themselves?

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Oh, and bernbart, what part of typing is not preparation for college?

What an odd question.

The really short list would be the list of Bush appointees who didn't use lying as a regular part of their work day.

I have said it before, and I will say it again.

You don't know who I am. You may know I teach high school math somewhere in Oklahoma, but you know mo more than that. But you know there is a continuity to my posts, because they always carry my pseudonym. My true identity is hidden. But I am willing to allow all the posts under my pseudonym to create my identity as farnsworth.

Saying you are anonymous to protect your identity is only a valid excuse if your Salon login is your real name. Your actual first and last name. And your middle initial too, unless you have a very distinctive name. After all, you could be anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world that has internet access. There is some serious plausible deniability here even if you are using your real name.

So please, let's retire this weak excuse of "I am anonymous to protect my job."

Between Larry Craig and Alberto Gonzales -- and there's a place no one should want to be...

Absolutely priceless!!

Mr. Greenwald,

I truly appreciate the way you continually point out the lies and hypocrisy of Republican politicians and pundits. But I don't understand why you continually give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to motives.

Commenting on the vast difference between reactions to Craig's current legal situation and the reactions to events last October you write:

As always, it is astonishing to observe how the same human brain can accommodate those two opposite thoughts only a few months apart without even realizing that it is doing so.

This is not a question of accomodating opposite thoughts. This is all about people who have no regard whatsoever for the truth saying whatever they think will be the most expedient at the given moment.

It is fruitless to try and discern what the actual thoughts of these people are based on what they say. Because what they say exists only in the moment. It exists only for the current news cycle.

Over and over these same people you cite make contradictory statements concerning matters that range from Iraq to health care to banking to homosexuality. The only consistency observable in their statements is the intended short-term benefit to the Republican party.

I am aware that it is usually best to attribute such actions to stupidity rather than malice, but in this case the weight of the evidence makes any other conclusion extremely unlikely. These people are willfully telling whatever lie seems to help them out the most at that moment. They are not holding contradictory opinions. They are not expressing opinions. They are selling their own integrity in an attempt to "win."