At an intimate talk story session with his loyal local followers last year, Ed Case surprised many of us by sounding more Red than Blue. He supported Bush on Iraq, lip-synched a balanced budget tune after voting for tax cuts, and even seemed enthusiastic about invading Iran. Last Year! He ignored the problem of vote tampering (which made me wonder if he might be hoping to be the beneficiary of some). He used the word "liberal" as a pejorative, and thereby lost the rest of his audience.

Case entered the senatorial race with the specious and indelicate argument that, should Akaka drop dead before completing his term, a Republican governor could fill his seat with another Republican. If that was his main concern, then he should have run for Governor. Ed didn't have the cojones for that battle.

While Akaka has certainly squandered and neglected his political capital, as noted by Time magazine, Ed Case is no prize. He scored even lower than Akaka with BOTH Project Vote Smart and Congress.org.

It's true that Hawaii should be replacing our aging Democratic senators, but we would prefer to replace them with other actual Democrats. The absolute worst thing I've heard about Case has been from his own press office: "He's his own man. He keeps his own counsel. He makes up his mind and sticks to it." Sounds too much like another psychopath currently in office.

I'd rather have an ineffective Democrat in the Senate than an effective neo-Republican wolf in sneak's clothing.

No one should drink and drive. Drunk drivers who kill should be prosecuted for murder. It's a choice, and a bad one, to drive while impaired.

Given that, for a person to be convicted based on judicial unfairness, prosecutorial misconduct, her own counsel's incompetence (one might say malpractice), and the high profile of the victim, brings brightly to mind the term "railroaded."

Rohypnol remains classified as a Schedule IV drug, even though it has a substantial history of use in felony rapes, a significant potential for abuse, and has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. This drug is clearly not taken seriously enough by law enforcement. And the attitude of people who - not themselves being targeted by predators - assume that no one is, astounds me. Letter writers who know conclusively that because X has never happened to them, it has never happened to anyone, are as incomprehensible as flat worlders.

You know, reading the Forbes article, I was struck by the resemblance of Noer's "career woman," to your average everyday male. As he grows wealthier & more powerful, he will be pickier in his mate selection, less interested in settling down, and more likely to be unfaithful. More successful men are notorious for trading in their used spouses for trophy wives; shedding especially those women who, having (put them through law/medical/graduate school), (financed their first corporation) (worked in the business for free for X years), remind them too much of their own humble beginnings.

As for housework, child-rearing, or servicing his spouse, much less looking after her health and well-being, few men are willing to collaborate equally. It's not surprising one bit that men are reluctant to marry something like that.

Throw in sports, questionable hygiene, and the male propensities for violence and voting Republican, it's astonishing that anyone at all would want to marry one.

I would be much more impressed with Joe's integrity, intellect, and patriotism if he were demanding consequences for Bush's "idiocy," instead of simply viewing it as a harmless quirk. I, too, think that Bush is an idiot, a dickless frat boy who is playing at being a president on TV. When left to his own goofy devices, we have him choosing goats over terrorists, vacations over duty, Meirs & Brown over - well, just about anyone else, really.

Yet when handled effectively, he's also a photogenic mouthpiece for corporate barons and warmongers (oops, I repeat myself) and the voice of absolute wealth and power. He has no idea what a nation is, much less how to lead one. He has never in his life held a job he got for himself. He cannot even recognize a complexity, much less parse one. And yet the Joes & Anns & Bills & Rushes proudly deemed him more than fit for office. Twice. Now Joe is rethinking his former devotion. If Joe is serious, and not simply another of those hypocrites he so smugly derides, he must take this to its logical conclusion.

It's not a quirk to be an idiot president. George II is not just a joke. He is a criminal. If Joe really thinks George is unfit for office, he should be agitating to get him out, as well as calling for his administration's accountability. Not just because omigosh he's not really a fiscal conservative, or because he's using his office gasp illegally and unconstitutionally, or because he sold our energy policies hee hee to the highest bidders, or nudge nudge wink wink is stacking our judiciary with one trick ponies, or has chosen to abandon our smirk citizens in the Katrina disaster. He also decided to kill 2,600 Americans and over 40,000 Iraqis in a counterfeit war, and his death toll continues to rise.

Bush is worse than incompetent: he's a traitor and a mass murderer. Or would reality hurt Joe's ratings?