Because there's so damn much to indict him without it. It isn't necessary to link him with supporters who are warped and crazy because HE HIMSELF IS WARPED AND CRAZY.

I'm willing to bet that most RP followers aren't anti-choice, certainly not with the vehemence that RP himself is. But the only way you can justify supporting a fascist like Paul is if you relegate women's fundamental bodily autonomy to the realm of "unimportant" issues.

This is patently offensive. How many RP supporters would still like him if he advocated a return to segregation? Morally speaking, anti-choicers are the same.

The ability to raise unseemly amounts of money is not a ticket to relevance.

By these standards, Lyndon LaRouche is as relevant as Ron Paul.

Just because he cloaks his right-wing views in the rhetoric of the Constitution does not mean he is a "vigilant ... defender of America's constitutional freedoms." I assume that you agree with Paul that these freedoms do not include reproductive freedom? Or the freedom to have a homosexual relationship? Or the freedom to take a birth control pill?

Ron Paul is just peddling the same warmed over "States' Rights" bullshit that we heard from the Secessionists, the segregationists, and the Birchers. I am disturbed that otherwise intelligent people like Mr. Greenwald are falling for it.

Ron Paul is a right wing extremist (I doubt he would dispute that) who gets a handful of issues sort of right, while being dreadfully wrong on everything else. He cares more about "states' rights" than individual rights, and he only believes in freedom for half the population.

This is, or should be, the end of the story. Anyone who has warm feelings toward Mr. Paul is naive, deluded, or depraved.

I realize that YOU, as a gay man, will never have to worry about not being able to get an abortion, but could you possibly look past your own situation and realize that Ron Paul is a vicious authoritarian who does not believe in the fundamental autonomy of half the population?

You are blowing your credibility for all time with this Ron Paul nonsense, and revealing yourself as having the political sophistication of a high school sophomore.

... after his preposterous series defending the misogynistic theocrat Ron Paul.

Salon needs to hire somebody else.

I found two people who agree with me! And one of them even has a vagina!

Dood, the Yankees re-signed their third baseman!

Cary says: "This does not have to end badly."

Well, maybe it's doesn't logically, metaphysically, a priori, necessarily have to end badly.

But it's going to end badly.

I'm thinking murder-suicide. Anyone want to take bets?

KK writes:

"The Yankees don't need A-Fraud the choker, the argument goes, they need pitching. Well, if they let A-Fraud go, they're going to need even more pitching. That's how it works."

That's a funny way of looking at things. Obviously, the Yankees with A-Rod are a better team than a hypothetical Yankees team with all the same players except Lowell (or whoever) instead of A-Rod.

But the idea behind the argument you're referencing is that the money spent on A-Rod would be more efficiently spent on pitching. Of course, A-Rod = more runs. But do the added A-Rod runs exceed the runs against that you would save if you spent the money on a pitching upgrade? I don't know the answer to that, but that's the real question, isn't it?

GG writes:

"I still don't quite understand what the scandalous aspect of the story is."

I'll let others explain to you - slowly and in small words - why this is scandalous.

I would like to focus on your decision to provide cover for Giuliani and his defenders.

What made you think that was a good idea? What made you think it would be wise to give Giuliani apologists a chance to point at you and say, "Look, even the liberal Glenn Greenwald thinks there's no story there"?

You should just stop writing about politics. As your nonsensical praise of Ron Paul illustrated, you just don't understand it. Stick to the narrow legal arena and leave politics to people who actually know and care about it.

One sentence:

"Dad, I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS."

Maybe someone's already suggested this, but seriously, it's an easy excuse that doesn't have anything to do with the quality of his output. He could be the second coming of Shakespeare, but that doesn't mean you have to be his personal, unpaid editor.

Even if you win, you don't walk out of there with money, you walk out with a judgment that ain't worth much if you can't get him to pay, which you obviously can't.

Burton writes:

"Murray explained to me that Bruce lost his personal (episodic) memories, but retained his semantic (impersonal factual knowledge of the world, such as that a Chevrolet is a type of automobile) memories. ... But there's more to situational memory than this arbitrary distinction. Knowing the dictionary definition of police isn't sufficient to predict how the police might or might not respond under a wide variety of circumstances, or even if they can be trusted."

Why would you so easily move from semantic knowledge to knowledge of dictionary definitions? Semantic information is vastly richer than anything that could be captured in a dictionary definition, and indeed a vast reservoir of semantic knowledge is necessary to even understand what the dictionary definition says.

A dictionary definition is nothing more than a rough guide to the conventions governing the correct and incorrect use of individual words. Understanding what a sentence or concept means is not reducible to knowing a list of definitions.

A small child understands the meaning of all kinds of words and phrases, but could probably not provide you the dictionary definition of very many of them.