Regarding the "right" using this as an issue to bring out conservative voters. I suspect it won't work this time. They've used it over and over and had six years of Republican dominance at the national level during which they Reps never made any real attempt to accomplish the stomping out of gay marriage. Dobson et al, have been increasingly sidelined by more open-minded, fair-minded Evangelicals such as Jim Wallace. Evangelical churches are starting to lose their younger members in many areas precisely because of their combination of conservative ideology, unyieldingly conservative theology, and politics which focused on gay marriage and abortion while their political allies raped the planet and America's lower and middle classes. The conservative pundits can (and probably will) scream all they want, but they'll be screaming into empty places where the only response will be the echo of their own voices.

Considering how rapidly has fallen the quality of "journalism" and I do use that term very loosely, in the average mainstream, national newspaper at this point, I suggest that the nation would be far better off if we simply skipped the distribution process and shipped these rags right from the press room to the recycling shredder. Think of the energy that would be saved, both from not transporting this garbage around the newspapers' distribution areas, and in the homes where the ground-up bits of newsprint blown into the walls would reduce energy costs!

And the editors of this trash wonder why the public is racing to the internet and public broadcasting for their news and information?!

Perhaps this will give away my age... It's from an old Vietnam era song. "He didn't die from a bullet, but he died from a broken heart."

It's great for the troops and their families to stay in touch. "Dear John" communications, whether snailmail, email, or phone call have been around forever, too, but I can't help but wonder who's taking care of the guys who get their hearts ripped out by the folks back home, because they're not equipped, nor would it likely be acceptable for them to take care of each other while deployed.

Considering the stress of suppressing your natural and normal and healthy "fight or flight" response on a continuous basis, dealing with the grief of losing your closest friends, sometimes in the most horrendous ways imaginable, the grief invoked by the loss of lovers and/or spouses and families at home (stress that would send any one of the chickenhawk war cheerleaders here at home over the edge permanently) is it any wonder a lot of our troops are coming home with mental stress/health issues, a lot them relating to unexpressed/unresolved grief?

Is it any wonder the pain of that load for guys who've been taught that to express any of their pain and grief would be "unmanly" and who know that to do so would cause the majority of their Commanding Officers to belittle their manhood; when using chemicals to try to medicate that pain leads to punishment and demotion rather than help--- that all of this leads to suicide for more than a few. What these guys need is a lot more love, help and support in how to deal with the very difficult issues in some of their lives and a lot less macho B.S.

Will they get it, or will some of our best, our brightest, our most courageous continue to suffer for this misguided travesty of a war for the rest of their lives because no one responsible for their being there is sane and sensitive enough to understand what long, repeated, deployments have done to them and what it takes for any of us to be psychologically/emotionally healthy.

I believe John Lennon was right when he penned the immortal words, "Love is all you need" (as long as these guys also get the help they need to recover enough so that they can give and receive love again after their hearts have been ripped out by the stuff they've gone through and then ripped out again by those who didn't or couldn't or wouldn't understand that what it had done to them just keeps right on ripping them up inside).

Gee, maybe as a gesture of goodwill, Hillary's good friend who arranged Rev. Wright's appearance at the National Press Club could give Rev. Hagee the same opportunity. Then he can have an opportunity to lay out his theories on the "rapture," Israel's role in the Second Coming, the evils he sees in Catholicism, and the Islamic faith for all to hear! After all, the public has a right to know!