Dowd's column is a nightmare of catty, Perez-Hilton-type vitriol. Why she ever got a slot on the op-ed I don't know. Rich is similar, however. And sure, we can say they're just a couple of kids not willing to go along with the "inevitablity," but both of them have their panties in such a twist that it made me think of one thing: this is about the time that the "liberal media" started their assassination of Al Gore. Including, especially, Dowd and Rich, who themselves were responsible of the false stories. They were all too willing to carry the Republican meme that he was insincere, unsure of his masculinity, would do ANYTHING to become president (like kiss his wife), and that everything he did was staged and planned. Oh, what a terrible man he was to them. And it's Bob Somerby's contention, and I think it's true, that they were among the worst of the liberal enablers of the Bush personality cult. And neither of them have apologized for what they said, or retracted a word.

To which I say, then, who the f__ do they are?

Klein works for TIME, as its sole "liberal" who screams at liberals, Friedman works for the Times, Cohen the Post, and Pollack works at Brookings. These guys are all corporate employees. What exactly has this got to do with the Congressional delegation?

The rule is that the first person to make a Nazi comparison in the argument loses.

But when the recipient of the insult actually bears no resemblance at all to Nazis, but they are left and/or democratic forces, then it's okay. See?

But seriously, what IS the comparison to the KKK or the brownshirts? Kos and MoveOn have become effective voices in the national debate. They promote causes and candidates and campaign against others. I haven't seen any roving bands of MoveOns beating up Republicans in the streets, or throwing rocks through the windows of the Sands hotel or other right-wing funders. I mean, seriously: they're both against Bush and his middle east crusade. Is that "Nazi"?

But thank you once again, Glenn, for asking what should have been an obvious question.

You THINK most pro-lifers are women because that reinforces your views. If they are the majority, and I have no idea if that's true, they're women who completely accept that they have no rights over their own bodies: in other words, brides of the patriarchy.

I come from a medical family, and I've known and understood the euphemisms about abortions too. Life as seen by the doctor is brutal and plain. Care to crack open a chest one day and suture some veins from a leg onto a heart? Care for a little battlefield surgery? Bowels steaming in cold weather? Ugly. An abortion is an operation, not a walk in the park.

The only reason people can use to forbid abortions is theology. The religious see ensoulment and so on. Well, if that's what you see, don't do it. Why should the religious force their opinions on women who don't believe it? The rule of the American Mullahs is coming. (By the way, my former church also forbids "artificial birth control" on the same basis. I think they're nuts, but hey, it's a free country.)

We seem to be headed for a situation where the women of Alabama, for instance, will be held hostage to ignorant pastors, whereas the women of New York will retain choice. If a woman is wealthy, she can travel to New York like the poor women of Ireland going to London when they're pregnant. Oh, goodie. Soon, it will be as if the 14th Amendment is just a bad dream. What do you mean, American women have a right to equal justice?

The Church is sane on the matter of the Death penalty, so I agree with them, and on just war, pretty good. On matters of sex, I truthfully think the Church is just a bunch of celibate nuts trying to control what they're very afraid of: women.

The Church doesn't want people to use birth control, and me and most American Catholics find that position laughable. I completely understand the Catholic position on abortion, and it's just as absolutist as many other positions it takes. Well, a person who believes in a religion has every right to follow it in the U.S., but he has zero right to dictate that the law conform to his theology. That would make us like Iran, wouldn't it? And by the way, you can ask the present Pope to butt the hell out of American politics, even though he was behind a vicious campaign against John Kerry, threatening him with excommunication for taking a position for all Americans, not just for the Catholics. If there are Catholics who didn't vote for Kerry because he's pro-choice, well, what do you think of that vote now?

And of course, we can look forward to U.S. society being a priest-ridden bog of superstition like Ireland used to be, can't we?

I realize we're in touchy territory here, as we may rouse the slumbering Donohue faction -- the former Legion of Decency types now recast by the right wing into a (snicker) civil rights group -- but the truth must be faced even when it's painful.