We ban guns on campus so that one fine sunny day, when a campus security guard notices a student carrying firearms across the quad, campus security can simply detain or arrest the gun-toting student on the spot, without worry about violating the student's "Second Amendment rights."

We ban guns on campus so that if a student tries to bring one into a classroom, the professor can immediately eject said student and call security, again without worrying about violating the student's "rights."

We ban guns on campus so that students do not have guns in dormitories, where stereos are often played loudly while some try to study, because no one should die over a stupid argument.

We ban guns on campus so a student who gets bad grades is more likely to study harder than shoot teachers and students with a better GPA.

We ban guns on campus in hopes that jilted lovers will merely annoy their roommates with late-night crying jags, rather than murder jilting lovers and annoyed roommates.

We ban guns on campus because we want incidents like the Virginia Tech shootings to be as rare as they, in reality, are.

Nor is it a "graphic novel." There's not a bit of sequential art in there (generally a requirement for a "comic book"), and while the writing may be exaggerated and hysterical, it's not narrative or fictive, at least one of which would seem to be required of any sort of "novel."

I imagine the gross misuse of the terms is an attempt to grab eyeballs as well as demean the NRA. If so, it's a failure on both counts.

Judging from Salon's take on this, the NRA does not have a corner on dishonest writing.

Drawing a line. Forced psychiatric treatment.

Doesn't sound like America to me.

You should find a "principled" Nader voter and thank them.

You're welcome.

It's no surprise really. Walsh has gone from a mere aside expressing shock that no one in the media has covered Senator Clinton's hawkish stance regarding Iraq to absolving Hillary of responsibility for her defenses of and excuses for her hawkish stance. Did Senator Clinton admit her mistake? No, she passed the blame. But that's good enough for Joan!

Hillary Clinton's mistake was not "believing" the President: it was in authorizing him to use whatever power he chose against Iraq. She excuses herself with the half-truth that she "believed" the President would use inspectors and diplomacy first. Walsh eats it up, ready for any sign that she can forgive Hillary and forget that Hillary has not changed, has not admitted a mistake, supports a permanent US base in Baghdad, and would likely keep thousands of troops (and "defense contractors") in Iraq.

Salon has become very interesting lately. In one corner we've got Glenn Greenwald doing excellent work exposing the bias and kowtowing to power that has hobbled our national press. But just a desk or two away, we've got Greenwald's boss, Joan Walsh, exposing her own bias, kowtowing to her own favored power-players, and dancing with the Democrats in the same manner that Greenwald's targets waltz with Republicans and foxtrot with Fox News (or King Drudge).

Of course, Walsh's excuse is that she's not doing journalism: she's just blogging, writing opinion. Or that it's impossible to remove all bias from her "reporting."

Astute readers will note it's the same defense used by those journalists exposed by Greenwald.

We've all heard this one:

ACTIONS speak LOUDER than WORDS!

Congressional Democrats DID back down. They stood up to Bush by demanding a timeline. Bush stood up to their demand with a veto. Then Congressional Democrats reneged on their promise to fight the veto. They backed down in the face of the GOP threat to paint them as "appeasers."

Their supporters are now left with the wind knocked out of them, kayoed by a sucker punch from their own "leaders." All those poor wretches who still support these Congressional Cowards will be left to spin increasingly empty rhetoric about "politics" and "compromise."

Previously we were led to believe that Congressional Democrats, suffering under a Republican majority and hegemony, lacked the power to end the war in Iraq.

Now it's clear that Congressional Democrats lack the will - and probably even the desire - to end this war.

Poor Monica Goodling! Look like she'll be the one who takes the fall for sleazy Alberto. One more body in the pile of people who must be sacrificed for the madness and idiocy of King George.

What is it with women named "Monica" getting screwed by the President?

I don't have much sympathy for Goodling. She willingly put on her Presidential kneepads and bowed before the altar of Bush. If she gets the shaft over this, it's justice served.

Of course, the Democratic cowards in Congress will willingly take her as a sacrifice, and drop their pursuit of Gonzales. Monica will no doubt go on with her life, land a cushy work-free job at some GOP-fed institute, then find herself back at the White House is a few years, as Special Adviser to President Jeb Bush.

AIN'T AMERICA GREAT?!?!?!