About the putative kabukiness of McCain's embrace of Jerry Falwell. I don't think there's any reason to be optimistic.

McCain is saying, in effect, "I've got to them a piece of me if I want the nomination," and if he DOES get the nomination, he's going to owe them.

He knows it, we know it.

Unlike Bush, McCain himself isn't captive to a "Biblical" worldview. Unfortunately, that's not good enough. The current administration isn't just beholden to that worldview, it's steeped in it -- and the results have been disastrous. It's going to take a tremendous amount of work to undo the damage done by Bush & Co. Having another president beholden to Jerry Falwell won't cut it.

All the best...

Richard Jasper

East Amherst, NY

As usual, that empty stereotypes about the South are once again being bandied about as a good reason for the Democrats to write off the region.

Here's the deal:

The geographic South (Virginia to Texas, including Florida) is the nation's most populous region and is growing faster than any other region in the country except for the Far West. The Northeast and the Midwest have been consistently LOSING population (or remaining static or experiencing negligible growth) for most of the past 50 years. That's the main reason it's idiotic to write off the South.

Likewise, the idea that the South is somehow overwhelmingly rural beggars the imagination. Ever heard of Atlanta? How about Charlotte? The North Carolina Triad? Dallas? Houston? Jacksonville? Orlando? San Antonio? They have vastly surpassed the Northeastern and Midwestern cities that were part of their cohort 50 years ago; for that matter, they've equaled or supplanted cities (e.g., Baltimore, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, St. Louis) that dominated the political landscape in earlier generations.

So, yes, white Southerners (at this point) tend to be socially conservative churchgoers and as such for the past 15 years or so they've been voting Republican pretty consistently at all levels. On the other hand, (a)African-American voters in the South are pretty reliably Democratic; (b) most larger Southern cities have a fairly strong (and growing) core of progressive white voters; and (c) the South has a burgeoning Asian and Latin American immigrant population that could go either way. Collectively they're ripe for the picking by moderate, centrist Democrats, provided they (the Democrats) can find a way to circumvent Republican co-option of hot button religious themes (e.g., gay marriage.)

The lesson isn't that Harold Ford Jr., packing plenty of baggage, failed. The lesson is that an African American man nearly pulled it off in a Mid-South state. There's no reason to think Ford's success can't be replicated elsewhere in the South.

Richard Jasper

East Amherst, NY

Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a "faggot," that is. Let's be clear that that's a slur and a slur of the vilest sort. It slurs John Edwards by suggesting he is something other than what he is -- a long-married, thoroughly heterosexual male -- and it slurs all gay men for suggesting that there is anything wrong with being gay.

If this white woman were calling...

Bill Clinton a "nigger"

Sandra Day O'Connor a "bulldyke"

Or George Allen a "kike"

...we wouldn't be having a conversation about whether it was a wink-wink nudge-nudge joke.

When my 19-year-old son tells me I'm a big ol' flamer, I know he's saying it with love. When that big-haired old cow at the Houston Symphony calls me a "big ol' queer," I know it's an insult to get back at me for having the temerity to point out her rudeness to the people sitting next to her.

It's like Glenn Greenwald says:

She's playing to the Republican base and they're lapping it up, precisely BECAUSE it's a vile, calculated insult.

As for Ann herself, I have a few choice descriptors to throw HER way but, as someone else pointed out, she's not worth it.

Blech.

Richard Jasper

East Amherst, NY

"Sexy." Librarians are sexy!

I know where I want to see my Ex-President in 2009 (along with the Dark Lord):

In the dock at the Hague on trial for war crimes!

If we're lucky, they'll cuff the wankers at President Obama's inaugural ceremony.

You wrote:

Every other presidential dreamer in her position had taken the fight to the convention (Ronald Reagan in 1976, Ted Kennedy in 1980, Gary Hart in 1984), but she has been demonized for hanging on until the first Tuesday in June.

In 1976, the Republicans lost.

In 1980, the Democrats lost.

In 1984, the Democrats lost again!

Do you think it possible to credit Democrats with the idea that they actually might want to win for once?

Richard Jasper

East Amherst, NY

Yet another idiotic story about the "evils of a/c."

I grew up in the Panhandle, where the writer's grandmother lives (with central a/c); my parents didn't have central a/c until AFTER I graduated from college and moved away from home. We got our first window unit, capable of cooling a single room, after my mom's major surgery, when I was 11 years old.

It was NOT fun!

I live in Buffalo now and I delight in Buffalo summers. Buffalo's economy, of course, is in the toilet. It's been in the toilet for 50 years. Believe me, it is NOT the fault of airconditioning. Buffalonians may have been brilliant industrialists a century ago but they're pretty damned lame now. Their brilliant plans for reviving the economy include begging people to come back and luring a Bass Pro Shop downtown.

I think we should propose a trade. Southerners will give up a/c, Northerners will give up central heating. We'll save a LOT of energy.

Pfft!

Richard Jasper

East Amherst, NY