If anyone is still reading this thread, I just wanted to explain something about the technical side of Salon. My original posting about the "Torture Primary" was written in about 10 minutes and posted in War Room just about when the debate ended. Michael Scherer, who did an admirable job with the wrap-up, took things from there. He had, for example, the debate transcript from which to work. The Romney comments, which were indeed inflammatory on second reading, were buried at the end of his answer, which did mostly discuss prevention.

Just a brief note to say that David Broder is definitely not the kind of judgmental journalists that I was referring to. And it was Sally Quinn who wrote the Washington Post piece pointing up the rube-ish nature of the Clintons, not Broder. While Broder for some reason has become a punching bag of late, I admire his lasting contributions to political reporting and civility and do not in any way want to imply that I am referring to him in any way in this article.

I fear that I will get as many letters over my four-word shorthand for Ron Paul ("anti-war libertarian gadfly") as any other element in the article. So I thought I would spend a minute to illuminate this debate over my use of the word "gadfly," since presumably nobody objects to my calling Paul "anti-war" or "libertarian." Sitting in a hotel room in Manchester, New Hampshire, I have to make do with the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, available through my subscription to the Encyclopedia Britanica Online. It defines gadfly (second definition after a "horse fly") as "a person who stimulates or annoys especially by persistent criticism."

That certainly fits Ron Paul's role, so far, in the Republican debates. He stimulates and annoys by his persistent criticism of the war in Iraq.

Of course, the implication is that I am part of an insidious Beltway conspiracy in treating Fred Thompson and John McCain as more likely Republican nominees than Ron Paul. All I am doing is reflecting the orthodoxy of everyone I have interviewed on the Republican race (from political consultants to random New Hampshire voters), none of whom mentioned Paul as a possible GOP nominee.

Maybe I am completely wrong and a hidden Ron Paul vote will sweep him to victory. If so, I will publicly apologize and re-think my reporting methods to eliminate this sort of bias in the future. All I ask is the same degree of after-the-fact humility from the Ron Paul fans who are currently castigating me, if (as I predict) he proves not to be a major factor in the GOP race.

It was my error and it will be corrected in the copy. Romney referred to the Wednesday night Red Sox game at length.

A national primary would be made to order for a lazy reporter. There would be no need to travel to inconvenient places like Sioux City, Iowa, and Littleton, NH. The only thing needed by a reporter would be a television set, since the campaign would consist of nothing other than TV ads and ersatz appearances with voters. I value the benefits of candidates being forced to take questions from voters (and reporters) on a regular basis in states like Iowa and New Hampshire. With a national primary, all America (including California) becomes flyover territory.

An interesting notion about ranking the states by turnout: Based on the 2004 presidential race, the much-maligned Iowa and New Hampshire are two of only seven states in the nation with 70-percent or better turnout rates.

Several letter-writers have wondered why I was raising the question of electability when the 2008 election is still more than a year away. The reason -- and perhaps I should have made this clearer in my article -- is that Democratic voters in the primaries are going to choose the party's nominee in just 100 days.

One other thing that I might also clarify: The reason that I was grappling with the "Is Hillary Inevitable?" issue is that this is the question that I kept being asked by friends, by acquaintances at parites and by voters in New Hampshire and Iowa.

As someone who has seen kabuki in Japan, I used the word in its American metaphorical sense of a familiar drama at which everyone in the audience knows the story. I recognize that this is not the literal meaning (though five acts are the norm for kabuki, I believe), but I do believe that it has become a familiar image to most U.S. readers. Next time, I promise I will limit myself to noh as a Japanese theatrical trope.

Someone inquired in the letters thread why it took Salon so long to respond to Tim Russert's death. There is no larger meaning -- I wanted to write the article because I knew Tim, albeit slightly from the political campaign trail. Alas, I was on an airplane Friday evening, which is why I could not write until Saturday morning. The article was posted almost immediately after I finished writing. And on Friday, the sad death of Russert was covered by our War Room blog.