and that's the beauty of being a progressive or in the Democratic Party. There really is room for more than one opinion. Lockstep thinking not required. In fact, having the discussion bouncing back and forth may actually be quite valuable.

Just for the record, though, Paul Krugman was saying something along these lines last month (March 10th), and in fact, he did make both points, as well as several of his own:

Bruce Bartlett, the author of ''Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,'' is an angry man. At a recent book forum at the Cato Institute, he declared that the Bush administration is ''unconscionable,'' ''irresponsible,'' ''vindictive'' and ''inept.''

It's no wonder, then, that one commentator wrote of Mr. Bartlett that ''if he were a cartoon character, he would probably look like Donald Duck during one of his famous tirades, with steam pouring out of his ears.''

Oh, wait. That's not what somebody wrote about Mr. Bartlett. It's what Mr. Bartlett wrote about me in September 2003, when I was saying pretty much what he's saying now.

[snip]

Never mind; better late than never. We should welcome the recent epiphanies by conservative commentators who have finally realized that the Bush administration isn't trustworthy. But we should guard against a conventional wisdom that seems to be taking hold in some quarters, which says there's something praiseworthy about having initially been taken in by Mr. Bush's deceptions, even though the administration's mendacity was obvious from the beginning. [emphasis mine]

According to this view, if you're a former Bush supporter who now says, as Mr. Bartlett did at the Cato event, that ''the administration lies about budget numbers,'' you're a brave truth-teller. But if you've been saying that since the early days of the Bush administration, you were unpleasantly shrill.

Similarly, if you're a former worshipful admirer of George W. Bush who now says, as Mr. Sullivan did at Cato, that ''the people in this administration have no principles,'' you're taking a courageous stand. If you said the same thing back when Mr. Bush had an 80 percent approval rating, you were blinded by Bush-hatred.

And if you're a former hawk who now concedes that the administration exaggerated the threat from Iraq, you're to be applauded for your open-mindedness. But if you warned three years ago that the administration was hyping the case for war, you were a conspiracy theorist.

The truth is that everything the new wave of Bush critics has to say was obvious long ago to any commentator who was willing to look at the facts.

There's more. If you are not a TimesSelect subscriber, you can also find Krugman, et al, via Lexis/Nexis.

Truth is stranger than fiction

I'm surprised that so many of you doubt the authenticity of the letter. People get involved in all kinds of horrible situations and don't know how to get out. Ask around and you will see that even many "nice, stable" people have had relationships in the past that were completely screwed up, yet somehow went on for much longer than is rational. people get attached and sucked into things, and it's often hard to extricate yourself. if you can't identify with that, you haven't had enough relationships.

Many of you who are quick to pass judgment and say very mean things to people who reveal their stories, i feel that you have a lack of compassion for other human beings, and that it would be a lot harder for you to say these things to Lace's face, for example. Everyone is mean to others sometimes, but it seems you're going out of your way to be mean for no reason (without provocation) to strangers.

-- LeCastor

Not only have they probably not been in enough relationships yet, they probably haven't had any that lasted for any significant length of time.

In fact, dollars to doughnuts, I'd wager that the majority of the compassionless in this thread are not in more than one relationship now, if that many. Meaning, they certainly aren't parents, because being a parent is a reality check for the self, which if all goes well results in a little compassion for the self, something you need before you can have any compassion for anyone else.

[I am NOT saying, however, that single, childless people are automatically without compassion. Obviously, some people are born with, or learn earlier on, better people skills. Others have to learn them the hard ways, one of which is by being a parent, and raising an infant to and through puberty and into adulthood. Nothing is more challenging or humbling. Or conducive to learning some compassion.]

I'm pretty sure that Cary is not a parent, but I could be wrong. However... he is extremely compassionate, making him my advice columnist of choice. Perhaps his deep compassion results from accepting his own flaws. It doesn't really matter. More importantly, he manages to combine his compassion with wit and whimsy and imagination. So what! if this letter did not require as much of his other attributes as it did his compassion, since the answer seems so glaringly obvious to so many. All the more reason to be compassionate.