The Obama standard is, to an initial reading, a reasonable and compassionate analysis. The brief did not go to the issue of whether or not this woman in particular should qualify for asylum.

It's clear that simply alleging abuse, even horrific abuse, is and should not be sufficient to obtain asylum and automatic immigration to the United States. Millions of women in the United States are also abused, should they be able to flee to Canada, the U.K., France, or another country of their choosing? Clearly not.

On the other hand, the Bush standard that woman who is a victim "merely" of domestic abuse should be automatically disqualified from asylum goes too far.

The threshold question that the woman is without official protection in her homeland seems like a good place to draw the line. The devil is in the details.

In particular, the allegations in this case that police refused to intervene, that he abuser was influential, and a judge tried to seduce her are all compelling, along with the horrific nature of her abuse. What troubles me, and should be an issue, is whether or not this was merely a local breakdown in the justice system. After all, you don't have to dig too deep within the United States to find examples of victims of DV with powerful husbands, apathetic police, and even lecherous, corrupt judges.

Musalo points out that it's not easy for DV victims to escape to a foreign nation for asylum. Fair enough, but then it should be even easier for them to relocate within their own nation. I think we can all agree that, despite the corruption and machismo culture of Mexico, brutal violence against wives and corrupt judges are not part of that country's domestic policy. Women there are de jure equal to men, if not always de facto. If a woman could relocate to any of many communities within her own country to escape a locally corrupt and broken justice and police system, then should she qualify for asylum, which is intended as a privilege of last resort? I think not. But this should be a fact-sensitive inquiry, as asylum cases always are.

In a particular case, an abuser might be so powerful and a country's justice system so weak that she might not be safe anywhere in her homeland, in which case I agree with the Obama DOJ that asylum is warranted.

It is significant, however, that this is a significant broadening of the historic basis of asylum, although it follows from extensions of recent caselaw.

Good observation. And Kansas O'Flaherty was a comic. There's a lot more love for and sense in the average Camille Paglia column.

Let's hope this one doesn't last as long as Kansas O'Flaherty. Don't expect any more of an apology for it though.

Installation #3 of this hatchet-job series includes a smoking gun! ONE instance of an undocumented burial of unknown vintage in a cemetery of 300,000 dead. Malfeasance! Infamy!

Sorry, round #1 and #2 were bad enough. You've completely lost your credibility on this story. The cemetery is fine, go muckrake elsewhere. Is this really the depths you have to sink to find government "wrongdoing?"

Looks like this "series" investigative articles has come to an end at two. They each got their spot at the top of the pages, Benjamin got to spout outrage on teevee and made an MSNBC anchor cry, and now Salon appears to be quietly burying it without comment. It's off the front page now anyway.

I expect this is the last of this poorly-researched, cut from whole cloth nonstory we'll see.

Nice follow-up to the hatchet job on Higginbotham, also based on the disgruntled account of Gray.

Metzler is completely in the right here, and you are out of line and have no basis for your criticism. You write: "Arlington's poor treatment of the mementos and gifts ... appeared to stand in contrast to practices at other cemeteries. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which runs 130 cemeteries across the country, asks people not to leave items other than flowers on the graves. But when it does find those items, it collects and holds them for 30 days in case the family wants to claim them."

Yet you do not interview a single official from a VA cemetery, or any other cemetery to back up this unsupported assertion. In fact you contradict yourself--saying that the VA cemeteries forbid leaving mementos and only retain them for 30 days in case they are claimed? How often does that actually happen? You don't say, but I have a good guess--just about never; why else would they have left them? And what happens after 30 days? You do not say, but I am guessing they go straight into the dumpster, just like at Arlington.

You baldly claim that Arlington's practice is "in contrast" with other cemeteries but can't cite a single one that DOESN'T trash ephemera left at graves.

But I hope you feel good about yourself for making a mother feel bad. I'm guessing she never actually thought about what would happen to the materials left at the grave until you shoved the photographs in her face.

Obviously if someone values an object they should not abandon it at a gravesite or any other public location.

Thanks for the "clarification." Can I call you Joe the Horticulturist from now on, since you admit that your initial comment was completely disingenuous and these taxes on the "rich" have no application to you?

Let me get this straight: You have an adjusted gross income (Form 1040 line 37) of approximately $350,000 from a four-acre nursery? You are making a profit of $87,500 per acre, after all deductible business costs, expenses, depreciation, labor, etc.?

If so, I really need some of what you are growing. If not, then go away.