The man had supervisors. I worked in a psychiatric hospital with residents and fellows for 18 years and I can tell you that supervisors have a nose for troubled trainees. They get them help or they gently move them to another residency program in a field less apt to impact already vulnerable people. There were a few really messed up "survivors" but the supervision process also referred them for treatment and made it clear that it was essential if they wanted to stay.

My question is why Hasan was not in therapy. I am not clear on that. Even healthy residents were in therapy or even analysis while they were being trained. Walter Reed is in an area full of psychiatrists in private practice and he could easily have been sent outside the military system for therapy by a well-qualified practitioner. The decision to send him to Fort Hood, where the talent was a lot "thinner" was a mistake.

The fact that he was rapidly becoming more religious should have been a danger signal because it shows incipient decompensation and an attempt to seal it over. It was missed. That said, I agree with Charles Krauthammer that murder is murder and medicalizing it is not going to lead to clarity. Hasan committed a horrible crime. He should have been in therapy and now he should be in jail waiting trial. It is a trial that will also try the Army. That, too, is as it should be.

How many little girls have been kidnapped, raped and left dead in a landfill or a pigpen by people who saw them as sex objects? We don't need parents sexualizing their kids. They will be grown soon enough. Let kids be kids. Dress them up for church or synagogue on the Sabbath but that's about it. There is no way a six or seven year old should look like she's ready to have sex. It's disturbing and, as has been observed, it's the parent running the show. Perhaps unconsciously the mother is offering the child to the father as a replacement for herself but whatever the motivation, the child protection people should be informed whenever there is a child pageant in the area so they can protect the kids from the parents.

I hope that the moderate wing of the GOP takes heart from this and stands up for the people who used to be Republicans.

There's a short hop from purity to puree and the GOP is making that hop. There is no longer room for an Eisenhower or Javits or Wilkie to emerge -- those days are gone. Likewise, a Nelson Rockefeller or even a George Pataki (ugh) would have no chance. Forget Christie Whitman. She'd be tossed out on her butt if the radicals had a chance. The GOP is making itself into a dodo.

Krauthammer proves that, like Hannibal Lecter, when a shrink goes bad, he goes really bad.

Even if a kid turns out to be Ted Bundy, the mother and the rest of the family will defend him to the utmost. Fox News is "family" and how does anyone act surprised if the White House dumps on poor Ted.

My cousin's life was saved by a late term abortion. The fetus was dying and her blood pressure was soaring from pre-ecclampsia. She would have died. She subsequently had a lovely baby who is healthy in every respect. I admire those doctors who have the nerve to defy the crazies. No woman with a late-term pregnancy ends it for frivolous reasons and it is an indication of hatred and fear of women to imagine that they do.

The basic rule here is don't cover up. Be the one to out yourself. Letterman did it with skill, didn't hide behind religion, didn't weep and beg for forgiveness. Nice. I'm not sure I'd want to be married to him but I certainly respect him for how he handled this one.

What is bad for conservatism is that anyone takes Glenn Beck seriously. I used to work in a psychiatric hospital and patients way better put together were judged not ready for discharge. He is in the middle of a very public psychotic break and I really find it sad that he's on TV rather than tucked into a private room at the Menninger Clinic or Payne Whitney talking to a therapist.

When right wingnuts walk around with rifles near the President of the United States, it's very easy to think of what happened to Bobby Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. When people ink Hitler mustaches on Obama pictures, question his provenance and yell "Kill him" at Palin campaign rallies, I have to worry about the unhinged among us. A man who hated Jews killed a black security guard at the Holocaust museum. Instead of confining our madmen in pajamas on locked psychiatric units, we put them on television (witness Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh) fomenting hatred and spouting paranoid delusional material such as I haven't heard since I quit my job in a hospital.

This is a very scary time and America has become a very scary place. Nancy Pelosi was mild rather than extreme.

If Kanye West acted like a fool, Beyonce did not. She did one of the most gracious things possible, inviting the girl up for her time in the sun. Kanye West, Serena Williams and Joe Wilson will only be marginalized if the rest of us act like mature adult humans. Obama handled it right -- he continued talking after a moment's dismay. I don't think Wilson should apologize in the well of the House. He should not be given that much attention. We don't encourage fools, we don't shriek at the poor bastard flashing on the subway unless he's an actual danger and we don't deliberately step in dog poop on the sidewalk. We respond with the kind of disapproval that makes the inappropriate behavior seem even more stupid.