Since McClellan consistently lies to the press, and lies about lying, why do they keep coming back for more?

All that does is give him a platform for misinformation which ends up blurring issues on the news and in print. Reporters would probably claim they need access to the White House of some kind, but what is it getting them? Just cascades of cacas, as Ionesco put it.

Instead of passing on dishonest sound bites, why not try cultivating whistle blowers, people who know what's really going on, rather than quoting the third rate magician who keeps muttering "Nothing up my sleeve"?

Anyone interested in Why We Fight and the issues it raises should read Chalmers Johnson's eye-opening and very sobering The Sorrows of Empire. I interviewed him for my public radio book show here in mid-Michigan and until I read his book I had no idea of the enormous (and often secretive) range of American bases around the world; how we never give up a base once we build it; and the ways in which we had become a permanent military state which was unstoppable, but was also becoming hollow at the core. I think Johson was talking about the bases we were building in Iraq well before they were (minimally) discussed in the MSM and he still has said a lot more about our power grab in Central Asia than most newspapers. I'd recently read Rubicon by Tom Holland describing Rome's slide into Empire and the two books made for a terrific juxtaposition. Johnson is also the very prescient author of Blowback, a study of US foreign policy mistakes wreaking havoc years later.

Every time I think the Democrats can sink no lower, they prove me wrong. They have become Agnews "nattering nabobs of negativism." They constantly play a weak defense, and focus on their vulnerabilities, playing catch-up. They need a defense like Gang Green, MSU's defense in its Rose Bowl-winning season in the late 1980s when they held opposing teams to something like an average of negative 7 yards per play. Now that was defense, baby: rough, tough, relentless.

The Democrats, how many of them voted for the unwarranted expansion of presidential powers because they were afraid of being attacked as weak on Defense and the military come election time? They all knew where Nixon, sorry, Bush was headed. And they compromised and temporized. Only a few, like Byrd and Feingold, spoke as Senators of conscience.

The Democrats now never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

The question isn't about spying. The question is about the Constitution and respect for the law. They just had the President hand them a brilliant issue and they're fumbling the ball. Hell, they're getting sacked again and again. They don't deserve to win, they don't deserve to have power, they don't deserve to run Congress or the country.

The whole idea is logically flawed. Many breeds of dogs have been domesticated for not just decades but centuries. Yes, commercialized food has become more popular in the last 60 years or so, but a domestic dog is not a wolf and not living in the wild in a pack.

But hell, maybe I'll take our Westies to the sushi bar next time I go. See what they order. They are from Scotland, after all.

Or perhaps they'd like some haggis.

Can someone explain the spelling of his CD title?

Why "Yiddishbbuk" and not "Yiddishbuk" (or buch)?

Thanks, Levlou. I should have seen the two b's as referring to dybbuk. Don't know the Yiddish for Duh. . .

This is far from "wholly enjoyable." It's very uneven in terms of tone, with many scenes feeling as if they were inspired by Tom Jones, while others feel like ersatz Harlequin romance, still others a Venetian version of Porky's, and some of it is just high camp. It's a slumgullion of a movie, lurching from one joke or set-up to another, and never maintains the speed and sharpness a farce needs to work. These characters are a bit too logy; someone should have set a metronome going during rehearsals. Casanova is my biggest disappointment of the winter movie season.

Medved objects to the message that love is a force of nature? The man is out of touch with reality.

Western culture enshrines the destructive power of love in sacred texts, myths, literature, art, and music. The Song of Songs, David and Bathsheba, Paris and Helen, Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guinevere, Romeo and Juliet, O'Reilly and his loofah. . . .

What makes Medved a cultural critic of any standing? He lacks real insight into history and culture. He does look critical, though, holding his nose up and drawing back his upper lip as if there's a bad smell in the room.

Maybe he's aware that his opinions stink.

Your teaser calls it "an avalanche of hate mail" without demonstrating in the article that it is hate mail. Hate mail would have little to do with the arguments involved and be mostly ad hominem--viciously, violently so. The article does not remotely prove this to be true, so Salon is inadvertently regurgitating the Washington Post's spin. That's sloppy journalism.

Can't you see it now? Pretty soon Opra will be scheduling the author of a terrorist memoir, something violent but redemptive. Maybe the guy even went to a 12-step program to escape his jihad-dependence. . . .

As for cutting aid to Israel, what a brilliant idea. That's got to be the sole reason the Muslim world hates us. Forget our supporting dictators and repressive regimes, and our vast network of bases.

I say, let's stop aid for one year as a test and see what happens.

Let's see if we're overwhelmed with love and praise, kissed and kudos, and all anti-American feeling in the Muslim world disappears.

And when it doesn't, what then? Will the proponents of cutting aid to the region's sole democracy come up with a different (and final) solution? And what will it be?