Perhaps the saddest aspect of this item is utter lack of support we are giving to the troops -- such as this poor soldier -- who have been emotionally injured. Add this to the system of neglect exposed in the earlier report out of Walter Reed and you can see that this administration's exhortations to "support the troops" only lasts as long as that man or woman is able to stand upright in the meat-grinder Bush and his neo-incompetent-cons have created in Iraq. God help these poor soldiers, and us.

As to his wife's comments BEFORE she found out her hubby was a whore-monger, it's typical of the right. They talk tough as long as it's just talk and they don't have to put their own fat in the fryer. Example's abound in the Bush administration and among their acolytes, who extol the virtues of making war, but run like weasels when you suggest they actually do the fighting.

I think an analogy that will allow people to be a little less antagonistic towards the concept of an editor is to compare him to a deejay, as opposed to a gatekeeper.

There was a time (a time which still lives in some places) when disc jockeys provided a soundtrack, not by making the music themselves, but by selecting works that had some quality and weaving them into an aural tapestry going out over the club's sound system or some radio station's airwaves. The DJ was, of course, in some instances imposing his own tastes. But those tastes were informed by having listened to thousands of songs, and one needn't listen long to figure out whether that particular DJ had any real talent for discerning quality or not.

And occasionally you'll find a DJ who clearly does have that talent, who you come to trust to deliver not just music you already like, but music you've never heard of but will come to like.

Similarly, the internet needs editors, if for no other reason, to act as that trusted deejay. Bringing you not only writers you already know and appreciate, but bringing your attention to writers you could never pick out yourself from the thousands and thousands that now toss their words upon the electronic waters.

I suspect that the exposure given to the GOP presidential candidates and their incessant cheerleading for Bush, the war and the surge have all reinforced and energized the base a bit, resulting in the 7 point poll bump mentioned.

Perhaps one solution would be to eliminate anonymous posts if they contain any shred of insult, vitriol, ad hominem attack, etc., and leave them be ONLY if they stick to making a point (cogent or otherwise) about the discussion at hand.

The thought is, there may be valid reasons for someone voicing an anonymous position or argument on a given topic, but there can never be a valid reason for flaming someone else -- no matter who is being flamed -- anonymously.

My first reaction to the note about the racial divide on the Vick case is that a certain percentage of african-americans will always assume that the black man is being framed, just as a similar percentage of whites will always assume that the black man is guilty.

Reflection, however, leads me to a deeper truth. That the black man has been framed so damned often in this country that the reaction among his racial brothers is understandable, and that this fact remains one of the great tragedies of our nation. I'll leave statistical analysis to people with greater math skills (or at least a more powerful CPU) than I, but until rogue cops and over-zealous prosecutors stop using race as an investigating tool (instead of merely an identifying characteristic), paranoia will remain the wrong word to describe the reaction in the african-american community. (It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.)

Worse still, if Vick is found to be as culpable as the feds are suggesting, that earlier-mentioned segment of the white populace will use that as "proof" that the black man is indeed always guitly.

Interstingly, the broad outlines here are not dissimilar to one of the other topics of today's column: the perception of NBA referees. Finding out that one of them was on the take doesn't prove that all the questionable calls were bought, but many will use it as their own "proof" that the whole game is rigged.

Ultimately, something else these stories show is that the people who claim sports have no real relevance, no broader relation to society in general, really haven't looked at either sports or society.