"Different words mean different things to different people."

He sounds like he's channeling an old Steve Martin routine where he says, with amaziement, that the French have a different word for everything. "Like chapeau--it means hat!"

I'd love to see the govt. try to prosecute on this bogus charge. It would make the Feds look like idiots and the truth about this story would be blazoned across every newspaper that's ignored the story: no secrecy was breached.

Cooler than all ten of these wastrels is Israeli actor Lior Ashkenazi (Walk on Water, Late Marriage). Handsome, masculine, smart, and he's not afraid to do full frontal nude scenes.

Now, that's cool!

Hatch was clearly doing a favor to help himself. He and the rapper share an entertainment lawyer. I'm sure Hatch thought this might do his own nasceent musical career some good somehow.

Given that these stars are larger than life, that their faces and bodies are magnified on huge screens, and that their bodies are the vessels of their performances, I don't see how you can talk about an actor without discussing the impact of that body. The acting doesn't come from a disembodied personality or consciousness, it's rooted in corporeal reality, like it or not. I would object if Andrew had been interviewing an author, but I think his lovely portrait was witty, informative, and a true homage to an actor with amazing range (The Statement, The Wings of the Dove, Swimming Pool). Besides, Rampling plays with her sexiness as he notes, so what was he supposed to do, not mention any of that? Perhaps he should have asked her to wear a burqua. . . .

So tell me, Democrats who oppose Lieberman's stance on the war and his creepy closeness to the administration in other ways should be quiet, suck it up, not express their discontent? Why? How will this help the party or the country? Why not just cancel the primary if the aim is to crown Lieberman and stifle dissent?

It's not surprising that Thomas has the temerity to declare a veteran doesn't know anything about war. This is, after all, the

man who saw nothing wrong with prisoners being abused by guards, and had the bad taste and lack of historical insight to call his hearings a "high-tech lynching." We live in an age of mediocrity in the highest offices, and he exemplifies it best.

Ah yes, another Salon.com book review of an author reviewed almost everywhere. What next? A profile of Stephen King? Patsy Cornwell? Come on, salon, try a little harder to be out of the mainstream!

I usually agree with you, Tim, but this is indeed a worthy news story, though not solely for the reasons listed by other letter writers. He was stopped and investigated by U.S. Customs officers. Unless you think they do this frivolously, or to fulfill some kind of quota, then what they did is serious and whatever they suspected him of was serious. As in: crime.

The sniff of disdain and the tone of contempt are not only homophobic, they're puritanical. Surely someone else with wit could have said something intelligent about this ad. It's an exhibionistic culture, get over it, and HH, get over yourself. If crotch shots make you uneasy, see a shrink.

Let's stop writing about Ann Coulter. If she spews her venom and nobody comments about it, she will lose her momentum and strange éclat.

I know we can't stop Today from booking her, but we can certainly not blog or in any other way pay attention to her. Let's pretend she doesn't exist, since everything she's doing is a sociopathic cry for attention. We only feed her pathology when we respond.

Matt Lauer continues to be one of TV's worst interviewers. He simply cannot ask tough questions and keep at it. He's Larry King with smaller ears and a better manicure. Lauer let Coulter run rings around him. He should have stuck with one question: How can you say they're millionaries---give me proof that these women have profited from their husband's deaths. This is a conrete point, something much easier to focus on than the others they batted back and forth. But as usual, Lauer he was scattered (and unnerved by Coulter's hysteria). Why can't he prepare better?

Listen, the whole Situation Room concept is a pathetic joke, so why expect anything better? Wolf intones daily, as if it's a startling development, even unprecedented, that news and pictures are coming in from around the world all the time. Stunning! OMG, is it, yes, I think it is, it's a news show on a news station. Wow, awesome.

Can someone explain the Dept. of Labor consistently issuing revised numbers for jobs growth? The numbers are always lower, several months on. Why the revisions? Why the initial inaccuracy? Aren't their computer systems and statisticians up to the task of accurate reporting? Is this a problem that existed during the Clinton years as well, or are we only subject to this consistent backing off a rosy scenario because of PR concerns?

If Armstrong is such an expert on the history of religions, why does she get facts about The Golden Rule wrong? In the book she says Jesus affirmed it and Hillel emphasized it, but she does not mention that the Jewish version dates hundreds of years back to Leviticus 19:18. Why? And why does she use the histroically inaccurate and linguistically ludicours term "Yahweh"? These are two sloppy errors which make me suspect her scholarship and approach her book with doubt. if she got these things wrong, what else did she get wrong?

Dear Joan:

I take great exception to this comment of yours:

<<and the level of paranoia in this letters thread is a little disturbing.>.

You are totally misreading and mischaracterizing honest disappointment and even anger that a salon.com writer would have so deeply internalized the 2000-era MSM gripes about Al Gore that he can't even see or admit his lack of objectivity.

Andrew O'Hehir did not remotely say that Gore's accent changes from place to place, as many people's accents do. He called it "put-on" and by falsely linking it to an image of Gore living in hotel luxury growing up, clearly implied he was a phony.

The groundswell from readers like me is appropriate and necessary. I don't care that the review of his film is a rave--that isn't what people are talking about. They'rea talking about received "wisdom" substituting for analysis and truth.