Has Steny Hoyer lost his marbles?? Bush "deserves respect?" I hate all thse pundits who come after the fact & tisk, tisk their way through a critique of Colbert's performance. Maybe Hoyer is too dense to get the nuance required to understand Colbert's skewering irony.

I thought Colbert was delicious.

You want him to resign and he hasn't even been charged with any crime??? Get real buddy. All you and all the rest of us know is what Alberto Gonzales and Mueller tells us. They say they found oodles of moolah in his freezer. They say they have him on video taking bribe money. This Administration has told us many things that have turned out to be something other than what they claimed they were.

Why don't we ask Justice & the FBI to prove what they're claiming before we pile on to Jefferson? I don't trust anything this Administration tells me till it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And there's barely doubt here & it certainly ain't reasonable yet.

After an incident like this. And the women's team's response further cinches my feeling.

How can the women's lacrosse team members allow loyalty to their fellow male lacrosse players to trump their fellow-feeling for a woman who may've been raped? Not to mention that the legal process hasn't even taken it's course yet & they've rendered their own personal judgment. Are they lawyers? Judges? Have they examined any evidence?

It's simply preposterous & mightly embarrassing for Duke I'd think. And if it isn't--well, then that's yet another reason I'd prefer sending my kids elsewhere when they're old enough for college.

As a progressive Zionist, I am disturbed by the Taglit mission. Its founders are deluding either themselves of the rest of us by saying that they have no political agenda. Of course they do. Their agenda is that of the largely conservative Jewish leadership of this country: right-wing pro-Israel.

There's a reason Taglit participants don't learn anything about Palestine or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (except what their tour guides tell them in offhand moments of propaganda talking pts.)--Taglit believes what its tour participants don't know won't hurt them. But Palestine is of course the 900 lb. gorilla sitting in the room. You can't ignore it. You can only pretend to do so.

As for having no "agenda"...if this were so why would Taglit expel participants who intended to also attend Birthright Unplugged? And if Taglit objects to BU's "agenda" why doesn't it counter BU by presenting a balanced perspective on the entire conflict? By refusing to do so it only provides an opening which BU exploits.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for Taglit. It is a propaganda instrument for the Aipacs and Jewish Federations of the Jewish world. It's raising kids to cheerlead instead of think for themselves. It's raising rote Jews instead of Jews who really grapple with their identity.

I've written a longer (& different) version of this comment at my blog which is linked to this comment.

I agree with Cary's advice to a point. This woman needs professional counseling to deal with the abuse she has suffered. I speak as someone who was myself abused emotionally (& somewhat physicallly as well) by my parents. My father, with whom I had the better relationship, has died. I have no current relationship w. my mother. SO this solves the problem of whether to allow her to have contact w. my children.

I feel for this woman's dilemma about whether she should let her parent's see her children. Here is my thinking: you should let your parent's know that you are unhappy w. their response (or lack of response) to yr letter. You should also let them know that they can't NOT have a relationship with you while having one w. your children. That's doesn't work for you. You should tell them that they may see your children by announcing when they wish to see them and not by coming to see them surreptitiously.

I don't know what to tell you about how to approach your parents. But perhaps you need time away from them. And that may mean that you wish your whole family, including yr children not to see them.

And of course, you have every right to want to supervise your folks' contact w. yr kids. If they damaged you what would stop them fr. doing the same to yr own kids? What would stop them trying to turn yr own kids against you? I would suggest that you do not allow them unsupervised visits w. yr children. Either you, yr husband, a nanny or another trusted person should be there as well.

Giuliani's new Middle East advisor who has advocated razing entire Palestinian villages which house someone accused of a terror attack--a policy which would constitute a Geneva Convention violation. Pipes also embraced Saddam as far back as 1987 (he "voted for him before he voted against him").

Hiring Pipes & Podhoretz plays well among right wing pro Israel Jews who Giuliani needs for fundrasing purposes, but we should make him pay for the ideological commitments he makes to such hateful political swine.

Just look at the poll results about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. They're pretty abysmal except for the question you noted about creating a Palestinian state. Most Jews believe peace is not possible, that Olmert & Abbas will fail, that peace can never happen with Hamas, & that Arab want to destroy Israel. In fact, the results are so severe I'm half inclined to wonder at the way in which the questions were phrased & the polling methods. These results appears far more hawkish than previous surveys.

Oh, & another important reminder to Greenwald readers: go and vote for this blog in the Brass Crescent Award competition for Best Non-Muslim blog:

http://www.brasscrescent.org/