This action forces so-called pro-lifers to clarify the distinctions they make between protecting fetuses and favoring death penalties. They have said they are interested in protecting INNOCENT lives. But even in the case of rape or incest, the fetuses are innocent. It seems to me they base their distinctions on whether the woman has enjoyed sex; if so, they are the ones to be forced to carry unwanted children. And to the notion of when women's rights begin and end: A female person never has more rights than when she's in the womb.

I heard about the magazine, bought one and hated it, starting with the cheesy but down-market Cosmo-type cover. I'm 56, no slouch, but if I never see another fashion spread with skinny models dressed like trollops who didn't bother to check their hems in a mirror ... well, never mind. It's just the same old women's mag format -- unreality-based (tight) clothes & shoes, hair, makeup, weight loss, sex tips and recipes. This is why our mothers either had hysterectomies or went to the nervous hospital when they reached a certain age. At least Oprah explained the phenomenon of the "meno-pot" bellies we get and told us where to get medication that stops facial hair growth.

--Patty H.

When I started out as a journalist more than 20 years ago, I was just like you: terrified.

Now, I can pretty much ask anyone any question, because my skin thickened and because I started this career relatively late in life I'm older than most of my interview subjects, which allows a certain bemused distance. Besides, the government newsmakers I deal with generally deserve all the discomfort I can deliver.

But, as a colleague said the other day, it's just not fun any more.

Newspapers are dumbing themselves down as fast as they can to capture the elusive youth market. Because young people want electronic delivery, they never will subscribe to a paper. Ratings (hits) drive newspapers' Web content. Everything has to be written in 500 words or less -- enough space for a single idea, no context or background and a couple of voices that must include at least one "real person" even if he or she doesn't add any information to the story. The story must be easily converted to comic-book-style graphics. Pop culture trumps national and international news.

The sad truth is, you're trying to apply conventional ideals to a dying industry, where people seriously argue that resistance to knocking down the wall between advertising and news is just old-school snobbery.

Give yourself five years. If you still have the same complaints, you always will, so find work more meaningful and helpful than breaking your back for corporate media. And remember: You look like an ant to them.

Digby, your outrage is refreshing, but you obviously are a new student of the AP. See if you can find Dave Barry's ancient column on his time at the wire, then maybe look back at other AP dispatches over the years. Or, don't bother. As a former wire staffer, I can tell you this is how it's always been. The reporter may have written the overline, or maybe an editor did; it's not even clear from your post that the hed is an AP overline (news outlets routinely change them).

I don't support Clinton; I'm for Edwards. However, this Rezko thing has more substance than Whitewater ever did. GOPs are keeping their powder dry for now, but just you wait and see. Obama is a fey princeling who pretends to be above all this sort of greasy stuff but is not ready for what will happen if he's the nominee.

--Latest polls show McCain beating either Obama or Clinton, though the numbers re Obama indicate a dead heat.

--Obama didn't know there already is an org called al-Qaida in Iraq, which is incredibly ignorant.

--Clinton is still ahead in the delegate race, even without Michigan and Florida (whose voters might demand their franchise back despite any arguments anyone, including the Democratic Party, Clinton or Obama might make one way or the other).

--No one knows anything about Obama because (stupid) campaign reporters aren't digging, only comparing personalities.

--The next president will survive exactly one term.

Obama -- half-white, 1st generation Kenyan-American, from Hawaii, schooled at an elite private academy and then Harvard -- has co-opted a vast American family history that isn't his to advance an oblique argument that it's time an African American led the nation. That notion is welcome and way overdue, but why hasn't Julian Bond or John Conyers or Kweisi Mfume or Eleanor Holmes Norton or Andrew Young or any other eminent and civic-minded African American fully possessed of policy expertise and political acumen been so adored? Race-baiting takes all forms, and Obama has proved a master at helping white people to feel good about themselves, so broad-minded as to vote for a black man, while also subtly encouraging the virulent misogyny that is an enduring stain on this nation. His feet are made of clay, too, as we all will realize when he's president.

I can only wish to think as clearly and write as well as Debra Dickerson. Nope, I am not she. I just now read her essay published in Salon last year and she says it all -- and concludes electing Obama would be good for the nation. I can only hope so, as he artfully dodges policy discussions amid this race controversy that he knows is helping him avoid the hard questions that directly relate to leading this nation and the world.