so many people going through so many contortions to justify and defend the man. She may have hit him first. Was she really that badly injured. She may have insulted him, given him a disease, etc. She probably started it. Maybe she mouthed off, deserved it?

It is very revealing this effort to find a way out for Brown. It is reminiscent of the Bush worshiper's efforts to defend him against charges of.......anything, everything because of course he can't be wrong and the they are out to get him. A lie in those circumstances can't be wrong, can it. The defensiveness suggests a dislike of and fear of women that requires that they always be placed in the wrong.

It is never, ever okay for the bigger and stronger to hit the smaller and weaker. He is bigger and stronger so he has no right to hit her. Walk away. It is never okay to hit another person as a response to behavior you don't like. It is only okay to hit someone else to preserve your safety or the safety of someone else who is weaker. Period.

Maureen Dowd and Ann Coulter, Paglia, in supporting Rush Limbaugh and his audience is laughable. Surely the ditto-heads and the head ditto deserve no support from any thinking feminist of any type. To support a group and group leader so filled with fear of and hatred for women is to embrace their hatred. Paglia is both a superficial apologist and a mindless, rage-filled bomb thrower who aims at straw men.

the real world. I listen to the elite pundits who talk about America and what Americans, particularly young ones, are like, what they think and feel, and I know the pundits do live in another world. I teach at a community college and my students and their parents are nothing like the Cramer's and the Cokie Robert's portraits. On the most simple level, they know nothing about computers, don't care about politics, or Obama, or John McCain. They aren't frightened because they either don't know about the trouble they face or think it has nothing to do with them. They worry about: being single mothers; getting another DUI and losing their licenses and thus having no way to get to school or work; losing child care; being stalked or beaten; not getting child support; losing their food stamps; or Pell Grants that don't stretch. They spend too much time partying and getting drunk. They are bored by everything not within the circumferences of their navels. They are unprepared for college, for work, and for life with a few exceptions. Those exceptions are often wonderful, but they are exceptions.

It's so please excuse the typos.

it's late

finally be able to read your work again. I hope this is just the first among many more articles. Unlike most journalists you follow the facts and never fear criticizing the media or politicians when the facts take you there.

Those governed by fear have specific sources of unease. IF they are fearful, lower class white men are often afraid of black and Hispanic men as well as women. IF they are fearful, upper class white men are usually afraid of women. Such cowards resort to violence or temper tantrums and name calling. Lynching is one response, rape another, and George Sodini's murderous shooting in a Pennsylvania health club yet another. Chris Matthews, David Shuster, Dana Milbank, and Chris Cillizza resorted to childish name calling.

his being investigated for oxycontin/oxycodone abuse? If not, we can probably trace this fear to concern about what would happen to him if he went to prison for doctor shopping and sending his maid out to buy drugs on the street for him. Though, I'm not sure how alluring his chubby buttocks would be to anyone.

Obama. He has failed to understand that the Republicans don't want to negotiate to get a bill they like. They want Obama and the Democrats to fail. Bill Clinton, in explaining the success of Reagan and Bush II despite public opposition to much of their proposals, said the American people would prefer a politician be strong and wrong than weak (seemingly) and right. He is right. The Democrats should pass the damn bill and tell the GOP and the public "This is what is needed. Get used to it." Never apologize. Just do it and call out the Republicans as liars who would rather see every American lose his/her health care, job, pension than see Obama and the Democrats succeed. It is all about regaining power for them, no matter what.

again folks. Lyons is right. The mobs don't think they are racists or stupid; they do think they are as good as the next guy and thus think that means they know as much as the experts and they are afraid. I see younger versions of them every day in my college classes, sure they know more than I do about American history, which I teach. That means most of them can't be reasoned with, but SOME can be, and we have to reach them. Unfortunately that may mean turning their anger against their bosses by playing the mindless populism card. This is same cast of characters, in some cases literally, who went after the Clintons.

Obama and his people fell down. They so should have seen this coming. They drew the wrong lesson from the failure of health care in the 90's. It wasn't a Clinton failure. The corporations and conservative GOP politicians used the same type of lies against both Clinton's and against their health care bill. They come out from under their rocks, spewing lies, every time a left of center Democrat wins the White House and they ALWAYS will. The only way to prevent a repeat of the earlier effort is to pass the damn bill no matter what and keep the selling job simple.