Mike Malloy, who I normally don't listen to but did tune into today on my way home from work, read an excellent letter from a listener who talked about our ability, as media consumers, to distinguish between the public persona and the person. Namely, that we can't.

As the listener wrote, Jerry Falwell very deliberately put himself out into the public eye - he said things that were provocative and hateful to purposely generate controversy, inflame passions, and cause divisive bickering. And those actions and those ideas BECAME Jerry Falwell. So when people celebrate, pop champagne, or rage against him here, very few are raging against the guy who might have been a good father and a caring husband (who knows what he was like in private - I read that Clarence Thomas is a blast to hang out with...).

Like most public ideologues, Falwell will forever be equated with his ideas.

And since only HE is dead, it's safe to say that his ideas live on. So, really, we have very little to celebrate.

Incidentally, the Mensa members who run the God Hates Fags web site - they really hate Falwell, too. Something about him proclaiming love for Jews and saying that God loves everyone. If you can believe it, there are people out there (with web sites!) who are whackier and more horrible than Falwell by far.

Keillor is calling someone "Mr. Eyebrows"?

Um, Pot? Meet Kettle. I believe that you have a lot in common.

John McCain wants everyone to know just how great Falwell was.

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/158206.aspx

"I join the students, faculty, and staff of Liberty University and Americans of all faiths in mourning the loss of Reverend Jerry Falwell. Dr. Falwell was a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country.Our thoughts and prayers are with Dr. Falwell's family at this difficult time."

As a user of the NovoPen, I wonder if they really want all of us to follow Huckabee's lead: just think if we all lost all the weight and no longer needed their products!

I'm just curious - is all of this unusual? I thought that all politician made insane amounts of money this way. Not as insane as their ties to the war machine, but insane from my point of view nonetheless.

I don't like Wolfowitz anymore than the next liberal. And I don't know much about Ms. Riza, but she and Wolfowitz have been together for some time, have they not? And he's divorced, so it's not like this is an extra-marital affair or anything. Don't go calling her nasty names, OK? She appears to have worked her way to her position at the World Bank entirely on her own merits, none of which involve sexual favors.

Ah, good to know that Catherine Deneuve isn't above assuming that midwestern Americans don't have access to the printed word. And here I was worrying that she was going to be intolerably French.

If that statistics show me that people who live in rural France have no problem finding Iran on a map, then I will concede America's total and utter ignorance on all matters of foreign affairs. But I doubt that this problem is solely American.

But oh, man, do I love to go back for a visit.

People outside of California tend to irrationally hate California for no good reason, and I think LA is just part and parcel of that resentment.

It's a great place to live. I miss it every day.

Nancy Drew books weren't smart. They were fun, but they were sadly predictable. Case in point, if I am recalling this correctly - during the series that was printed in the 1980s, when I was reading Nancy Drew, Nancy would get knocked unconscious at the end of Chapter 7, and solve everything after the villain confessed to her in Chapter 10. And she was often rescued by Ned or someone similar.

Now, I did like these books, and I checked out all the old ones from the library to savor the more 'traditional' Nancy, BUT - I would never call these little books more than fluff. Perhaps groundbreaking for 1930s (20s?) when they first came out, but really quite cliched by the 1970s.

American kids are still quite intelligent and capable. They can handle a smart movie.

Hi, Glenn,

I'm not sure if other commentor asked this or not, but I was wondering if it's true (as Thom Hartmann was suggesting today on his show) that the sentence commuting can help Libby invoke his 5th amendment rights (whereas a pardon would have left him open to Senate subpoena?) until the end of the Bush term, when Bush will pardon him?

Wow, I wish you hadn't told me that he was the recipient. I might have listened to what he had to say.

Even liberals like a conservative who's willing to call bullshit on a terrible administration. McCain went from saying what he thought to saying what the administration told him to say. From selling out on the anti-torture bill to standing by the President's disastrous war policy, McCain went from maverick to quack, not by failing to please the arm-waving Pentacostals, but by failing to remain and outspoken opponent of blatantly illegal and morally insulting practices that our current administration indulges in on a regular basis.

His kowtow to fundamentalists like Falwell only made him lose credibility. The fundies weren't his base - he alientated the independent voter, and that's who he should have been counting on.