Lucy with Diamonds, what a great letter. I wrote on an earlier thread about how silly I think the "Hillary would have done X better" argument is. I didn't frame it as gracefully as you did: Obama handles all of the hate and turmoil with a kind of equanimity that is incredible.

If Rush's poorly paid minions are reading I'll be the Magic Honky again, but I do think he has the grace and patience many black people have to learn in our world -- and I say that as someone who defended Hillary, as you did, from the cruel excesses of Obama zealots.

To see these banshees screeching about Obama giving a back to school message, even if maybe the first draft of teaching materials had some dumb ideas, really makes me despair about our country.

But I'll despair over Labor Day Weekend, and on Tuesday I'll come out with ideas to beat them back, I promise.

Oh farragut, you're hilarious. I don't know how they failed to vet that communist Van Johnson, he was in all those socialistic movies, too! And jerseygirl7, in the U.S. we're proud of exposing our minds, and our children's minds, to other ideas. Keeping your kids home to protect them from another point of view is pathetic.

Giant Bastard, we've shut you down twice for your foul and often misogynist language. We will shut you down again. If you want to participate in these comments, clean up your mouth. I can swear like a sailor and very little offends me (you can tell from how few comments I delete) but you're offensive. The fact that I often agree with your general anti-wingnut point of view doesn't matter. You hurt our side. Stop it. And if you just sign up with another name and continue with the filth, we'll shut you down again.

virt, the more you embroider your story here, the more I really wish you were signing your name. Fighting alongside your black brothers, while you imagine your liberal foes were somehow draft-deferred (in fact your boy Five-Deferment Cheney really deserves your anger, as well as AWOL G-Dub, and Richy Rummy and Wild Billy Kristol) But...You're not bitter. I really admire your generosity of spirit, your equanimity.

It's beautiful. I really believe I could find you an agent for your story, virt, and I'd like to. People with ideologically complex stories like yours need to come out of their closets and sign their names. Especially when they make their living as writers! It's just so tragic that you're afraid to do so.

Readerreader, even though you've fallen in my estimation for your misstatements and just overall silliness these last few weeks, I'd like to answer your question about school funding and parochial school funding. Here's the thing: My father wrote copy for a Catholic textbook publishing firm. (There's actually an award named for him by its trade association, which makes me very proud.)

Most of his bosses and coworkers wanted some kind of subsidy for what they did -- tax credits at minimum. He was the rare figure in his world, telling us that the U.S. had to have a public school system, taxes had to pay for it, and given our secular freedom, if religious folks wanted to opt out and send their kids to religious schools -- as my parents and ALL my relatives did -- that had to be their right. But they had to pay for it. Protecting their right to do so was for him tied to accepting they couldn't/shouldn't accept government subsidies. Because if they got government funding, someday the government might restrict their textbooks and/or other teachings.

It's a kind of libertarian approach, really, as well as a liberal Democratic approach. He leaned in both directions, as do I. But I have to say, my father is why I'm hard for moronic ideologues, in these letters or on TV, to lay a paw on. I learned how to debate the subtleties of religious freedom, civil rights and social justice from a master. Terry Jeffery, Dick Armey, Bill O'Reilly, Liz Cheney, and, well, the loser chorus on these letters clearly did not. I'm sad for them. But I won't be pigeonholed in the way I think, and I think that's what pisses off really stunted ideologues.

Diable4, this is definitely the thread.

Who remembers the show "The New People"? To be honest, I just Googled it, but I didn't have to, it turns out, to remember its timeframe -- SHORT! Sept. 69-Jan 70 (I was 11) and premise: Lost-like.

And even w/o Google I can remember the chorus of the theme song:

"The New People,

Starting out alone,

and for each of them...

Tiiiiiiiiiime...has just begun!"

My grade-school best friend and I LOVED it, but then it disappeared. Kind of like the whole social justice movement of that time? But really, it felt so epochal -- after Woodstock, moonwalk, even Chappaquiddick, there really was a sense something else was coming...and then it turned out to be Richard Nixon!

And virt, it's always nice to see you pass up the opportunity to engage with a substantive post that has heft and meaning, even if you disagree, just to lob a cheap shot. How's your writing career going, virt? Are you promoting your career with a blog? With any television? Do you have people daily and nightly posting either praising or criticizing what you do? Or are you really 11, and are these spitballs? I'm starting to believe you're a crafty and cranky tweenager challenging the Obama era out of traditional and admirable tweenage rebellion. Or maybe I just hope that accounts for your prolific and increasingly lame posts. I'm an optimist, virt -- the idea that a husband and father and a professional writer is lurking shooting spitballs, well, it makes me sad.