I admit that I've been enjoying every moment of seeing these young, zealous right-wingers (Jennings and Goodling) being served up by the administration as an appetizer to Congressional investigators. Granted, many of the diners are toothless, and are only gumming their prey to death, but occasionally a Leahy or a Schumer will be able to get a juicy bite.

One wonders if any of these twerps has backed off the Kool Aid enough to understand how they're getting royally screwed - how they're being cynically used as fodder by their superiors. If they were actually intelligent, instead of merely clever and ideologically blind, they might see their predicament as part of a much larger picture wherein the right wing always sees its underlings as expendable. And unfortunately, all of us who aren't millionaires are their underlings. (See the Iraq War for the best example of this.)

So I doubt this will be a learning moment for any of them; Bush, after all, speaks directly to God. For me, though, it sure reinforces my understanding of the right-wing mind.

Whether or not Obama's new speech comes in response to the establishment's perception of his "wobbling," the excerpts quoted here seem to be more or less on the mark. There are still plenty of Muslim fanatics who want to wreak havoc in the West. The fact that Bush has made exactly the wrong decisions about the use of our resources over the last six years doesn't mean that Al-Qaida or other groups have given us a reprieve.

However, I would disagree to some extent with Obama's apparent dismissal of Iraq. The tragedy is that we're obligated not to completely abandon it. That doesn't mean we should remain as an occupying force, but we owe it to Iraqis to help them in whatever way we can to put their country back together again.

And the fact is: nobody has any idea what will happen when we leave. Will it split into three separate states? Will another Saddam-like dictator emerge? Will it become another Afghanistan - a "failed state" that's overrun by fanatics like the Taliban? Or could it, against all odds, become a prosperous Arab democracy? We chose to introduce chaos where there was order (of the admittedly brutal sort), and we'll reap the whirlwind for years to come regardless of what we do now.

My experience with "Persona" was similar to that of the author. I was obsessed with its striking boldness - quite unlike anything I have ever seen before or since.

I'm surprised that Mr. O'Hehir doesn't describe the breathtaking opening sequence: an experimental tour-de-force that appears to draw comparisons between the mechanism of the film camera and that of slaughter and crucifixion. Read into that what you will (for me, it's a commentary on the inherent voyeurism of film), but as formal expression, it's pure genius.

That's probably the worst part about this article from the perspective of the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, Christian fundamentalist GOP base - much worse than the association with trial lawyers. After all, most Republicans hate trial lawyers until they themselves are injured or inconvenienced, and then it's a whole different ball game.

But, quelle horreur! Associating with the French, who have national health care, a short work week, and who are notoriously secular in their habits and beliefs? That's unforgiveable.

I was born under the Nixon administration (does that count as a cursed star?), and the first president I can actually remember with any clarity is Carter. But I tend to agree with those critical of LBJ, not because he didn't do good things (Medicare and the Civil Rights Act alone are unbelievable accomplishments), but because his lies about Vietnam set the stage for the corrosive politics of anti-everything that have characterized my entire life.

Any good LBJ did by enacting the Great Society, the Voting Rights Act, etc. was later undone by the erosion of public belief that the government could do anything well or competently, or that it would tell the truth when it mattered. Vietnam, and the utter mendacity that surrounded it from the very beginning (Gulf of Tonkin "incident" indeed), seems to have forever damaged our capacity for collective action.

Given the politics of paralysis that we face today - with screaming lunatics on the far right amassing ever more power for themselves, while left/liberals look on helplessly - I wonder if Johnson's Faustian bargain (disable right-wing criticism by fighting the Commies; focus your energy on passing a liberal domestic agenda) was worth the price.

The civil rights laws might have come along anyway, though not as early. Medicare and the rest of the Great Society is an open question. But the lying has proven unforgiveable, both because it resulted in the deaths of thousands (millons?) of innocent people, and because it paved the way for Nixon's atrocities, as well as those of Reagan and, most disastrously, Bush. Unless this destructive cycle can be broken, I shudder to think what will come next.