I was reading Barbara Kingsolver's novel, "The Poisonwood Bible" about a white minister and his family in Congo. She wrote that during the time the family was there, 31 children died in the same village of various causes, including the white daughter of the missionary family. The speaker asks whether the grief of the Africans was any less real than her own. She asks whether one can mourn the death of a white person from Georgia without including the death of a million Africans without missing the point that every life is just that -- a life.

The man has to resign and has to resign with a statement that his actions were not justified. Barack Obama has got to repudiate him and the flier and the man needs to be kept as far away from the Obama campaign as possible.

This is ugliness and should not be cropping up any more than distortions of Senator Clinton's statements on race should be cropping up.

Mike Huckabee's charm is a cover for his desire to turn our nation over to the religious right and marginalize liberal Protestant Christians, liberal Catholics, Jews, Muslims, atheists and anyone who has not signed on to the dominionist agenda. It is as friendly as the sky-blue mouth of the green mamba -- pretty but don't get bitten.

I sent emails to the publisher and ombudsman of the New York Times expressing my disgust. I read the Public Editor's open response -- that Kristol was hired for a year. That means none of us has to read anything he writes for a year. Maybe the paper will wise up and search its rapidly sclerosing brain for insight and a new direction. PBS fired its right-wing voices and cancelled a show that had been forced on it by the right (as well as firing its ombudsman) and I'm sure the Times can cancel Kristol and send him back to the Weekly Standard and Murdoch's stable.

I was nervous when John Ashcroft came too close to the Constitution and this guy scares me totally because he's so cheerful about it. Ashcroft had the grace to be dour, at least.

I don't want an evangelical within bazooka range of the ability to appoint Supreme Court judges or suggest that the Constitution should be amended. I want them to run small mom-and-pop businesses, churches and dog-catching enterprises.

When it comes to my rights, Huck is a set of fangs dripping blood.

I would be stunned into incoherence if the Bush administration's manipulation of us had been based on truth. I would be shocked if any of the color-coded panic buttons had been based on a real threat. I would be left comatose if this administration was capable of anything but mendacity.

The party of Lincoln, the party of Goldwater, the party of Wendell Wilkie and Bill Buckley has been brought low -- very, very low. It should have realized that it has to re-earn the trust of the American people after seven years of a retarded chimpanzee and Darth Vader. It should have seen that the American people will blame them for the war, the economy, the ecology and the ascendency of a right-wing religious fanaticism that makes the Taliban look liberal.

It should have gone for the best within it but we are reduced to a gangster (Giuliani) whose smile looks like the permanent rictus of a corpse, a cyborg (Romney), an elf (Ron Paul), Gomer Pyle's second cousin (Huckabee) and a still possible but overaged maverick (McCain). This is what they are offering us. Thanks but no thanks.

There is somethin gabout train wrecks that makes them memorable. We quietly look at the damage and shake our heads but with the expectation that there could be worse ahead of us. Bush is our train wreck. He makes us nostalgic for Richard Nixon who, despite being screwed up, was at least intelligent.

The delusion that destabilized the Palestinian Authority, that elections are tantamount to democracy and that put HAMAS in a position of authority, makes any attempt to make peace a forlorn dream. Granted the PA was a pathetic and corrupt mess, it at least had a leader who was somewhat flexible and it wasn't being spoon fed by Iran. Bush empowered Iran and, without realizing it, castrated Israel.

Coulter's respect is the kiss of death. In Kikongo, it's kibazza...kibosh.

I would have no problem with either of them being President and last night's debate confirmed that. They had some disagreements on policy but they were profoundly civilized and (dare I say it) "statesman/woman/like."

Karen

I watched the debate and was delighted to see two human beings with intelligence and grace discussing issues. After watching the Republicans the night before and seeing the race narrowing to a contest between a cyborg from an Ahnold movie and a man who pandered to the people who smeared him in 2000, two people who openly despise each other and pledge four more years of George Bush's ruined and ruinous policies, I realize that we are going to have an important year ahead of us.

My conflict is not about voting in the November election. My conflict is about which of these two incredible people -- Obama and Clinton -- I will support in the primary. What a nice situation wherein I don't have to hold my nose.

It is not fair for anyone to take a person to task for attending the funeral of a head of a church, especially if the attendee knew the departed. I would have thought less of him had he not attended because it might twist some evangelical knickers in a knot.

If Romney's memebership in LDS is a problem for someone, it oughtn't be on this issue.

Karen