When people put themselves out there, they have to deal with the response, be it good, bad, or indifferent--and the responses the Yakulskas received, whether they were positive or negative, were legitimate.

Furthermore, show me ONE Salon writer or story subject that has been allowed to post a follow-up story after a mere handful of letters--out of a slight 24 in total--were negative.

As for the people who feel compelled to call me or anyone else infantile names for expressing their opinions, they are the ones suffering from Ann Coulter Syndrome. I in fact COMMENDED the 9/11 widows, specifically the Jersey Girls, in my letter.

The handful of letters responding negatively to the original story all pointed to one of two things (or both): 1) that a story that purported to show how these people did not let their lives be ruled by 9/11 seemed to show just the opposite--that they appeared to be defining themselves by it. If they choose to do that, it's certainly their right. But that is NOT how the story was presented on the site. 2) That they seemed to feel they had some sort of special claim on grief. (This is further shown in Mrs. Yaskulka's response, when she deigns to tell us that she wants to let people know what people feel when someone dies. Sadly, most of have already experienced grief every bit as intense as hers firsthand, and don't need it described to us as if it's an alien experience...)

I lost good friends on 9/11, and I am close to seven families who lost loved ones, including two firefighter families from Breezy Point that I've known since childhood, a policewoman I grew up with in Bay Ridge, and several people I worked closely with downtown. I have seen their grief and their grace. It is because I have been so touched and amazed by them, and their refusal to define themselves by this event--except in some cases to make their voices heard to make this world a safer place--that I was taken aback by the Yaskulkas.

My friend Karol's mother was on the phone with her daughter at Keefe Bruyette & Woods the morning of 9/11, and Karol was telling her they were going to stay at their desks, because that is what security told them to do. I'm sure her mom will be reliving that phonecall for the rest of her life. But she is an amazing, generous, kind person whom you practically have to force to talk about herself. And she is typical of the 9/11 family members I know.

No one is telling people how they should and shouldn't grieve. But don't hold yourselves out as "not being ruled by something," and then demonstrate repeatedly that you are. And don't act as if you have a special claim on grief.

As for Salon, we all knew the anniversary of 9/11 was coming. You should have solicited stories from 9/11 families and others touched by the event, and then published the best of them. When I turned to your site on Monday morning, there were the Yaskulkas, bannered at the top of the front page. That was the ONLY story about a 9/11 family. What followed was an amateurish, mawkish, badly written story that not even the subjects seemed to be all that happy with. You could have done better by everybody.

...was that they had been dogging him since the NIXON administration. John O'Neill was a protege of future felon Charles Colson. And yet Kerry was still caught unawares.

If Kerry had been caught flatfooted by an attack out of nowhere, I would have been able to understand him needing a little time (though not the rest of the campaign, for God's sake) to mount a response. Because the fact is, it's always harder to respond to completely made-up crap than to genuine accusations. It's like trying to explain to someone why the moon could not possibly be made of green cheese. It takes a while.

But Kerry had three decades to get a response ready. The day those ads hit the airwaves, he should have been holding a press conference to shoot them down, refuting the lies chapter and verse, with documentation to back him up. And handing out a fact sheet on O'Neill and Co., outlining their political and financial ties. All of this should have been neatly packed into a press kit for every journalist covering him. And then all of his surrogates and former military colleagues should have been dispatched to news studios across the country with a single, unified message.

Democrats need to realize that, while the leap may not be a logical one, people do extrapolate that politicians who don't defend themselves effectively won't be so good at defending the country either. I wish I felt confident that the Dems had learned that lesson by now, but I'm still pessimistic that the Repugs will Swiftboat the Dems as terrorist-coddlers and hang on in the midterm elections as a result. For once, I'd like to see the Dems get angry when it matters.