There is a significant difference between the Danish cartoons and the torture at Abu Ghraib. As someone pointed out, the United States, neither its government nor its people, had anything to do with the Danish cartoons. We however have had everything to do with the torture at Abu Ghraib. One is not equivalent to the other. Apparently that's too difficult a concept for some of you to understand. The entire Muslim world is not tuned into Salon.com. I suspect few are. A great many Americans however are and that's the point. As Americans you should be appalled at the behavior of your government for if not outright mandating torture at least giving it the old wink and nod. You should cry out at the level to which YOUR government has sunk in pursuit of its ends in your name. How does torture make us better than the enemy? What unaccountable damage has been done to the reputation and standing of the United States among the nations of the world? This just makes us bullies because torture has been shown to be ineffective in intelligence gathering. That Salon decided to publish these pictures is irrelvant to Muslims because they've already seen them. The minute these pictures were put out by the Australian media, they were all over the Middle Eastern world. By publishing these pictures, Salon is doing its job as a member of the free press in a republic. It's informing the citizens about the behavior of their own government in the hopes that you will act like an informed member of society and do what you can to correct the government. In a republic, that's your duty. Salon has little if any way to influence how the Danes behave.

These people will never make it in the porn business. I've seen pictures of corn more erotic and sexy than these people. How tiresome.

Thank you for this well-reasoned, measured and intelligent defense for Salon.com's publishing of these photos. I dimly approached some of the points you've made here in my own letters, but nowhere near as intelligently, vigorously and succinctly as you have. Bravo, Joan Walsh. Bravo!

Such tiresome twaddle. Professor you're full of it.

I don't think she's electable. She's no progressive. Apparently, by personal conviction she's a moderate Republican, she's certainly trying to position herself there politically. We have mostly her to thank for the debacle over healthcare "reform." We have both her and Bill to thank for DON'T ASK DON'T TELL. And finally we have her and Bill to thank for the very first Defense of Marriage Act. She doesn't support same-sex marriage. She supports the war in Iraq. She's been soft-pedaling the right to choose. None of these are progressive views. I still don't think she's electable. The South and West (CA and OR excepted) are not prepared to vote for a woman, even one with watered down "liberal" views, and the right-wing noise machine will rip her to pieces. It'll be 2004 all over again. I'll hold my nose and vote for her, which is what they're counting on from those of us on the left. Too early to tell for certain about all this. Three more years of the current nightmare to go.

Follow the money. It's all about the do-re-mi.

Brilliant review, finely crafted and right on the mark about Bryan and American populism.

Denfield got this one right and the rest of you are just plain wrong. Ceasare got it right too. This is the game of love and they're both playing it. Typical of our pop culture it's not surprising to hear all the overt and covert misandry going on here both in Cary's reply and in some of the letter writers' replies. All armchair guessing about the ex's intent aside, who says that women don't in equal measure and fairly regularly, just want to get laid? Maybe that's why she called him back the first time. Anybody ask her why she changed her mind? She can, he can't? Maybe she really hurt his feelings and he's been off licking his wounds. Thanks to the triumph of the biological reductionists and their popular gender mythologies, people anymore think and act as if males are just genetic automotans with no feelings. Then again, as Cary pointed out, maybe he just wants to get laid.

Why do Americans find him likeable? H.L. Mencken predicted G.W. Bush sixty-five years ago. "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."