The people who spend their time defending the Bill Clintons and Barry Bonds of the world, or those who judgmentally condemn them at every turn? In the grand scheme of things, their crimes are relatively petty. I'm a pretty big baseball fan, but I could give a rat's ass who has hit the most homers ever. I DO happen to care, however, how many people were killed in Iraq yesterday.

...but what I think Farhad is saing is that if the next president has to be a Republican, he'd prefer McCain. Much as I dislike McCain myself, that's how I feel. Naturally, as a Democrat, I'd prefer the Republicans nominate a less electable candidate, but if we are talking about another Republican actually winning, McCain would be my pick.

As far as Jon Stewart goes, he's like they guy in the back of the class who's funny as shit when the teacher's not listening, but when he's called in front of the class, he's all stammering and apologetic. Why bother getting McCain or O'Reilly on your show unless you're gonna bust their balls as hard as you can?

It's easier, for me at least, to suspend my moral standards in Bonds/Giants case because I rationalize that it's just a game, it's only sports. I know all the arguments about why the steroids scandal transcends that, but you can't deny that the "game" element isn't there in the end. It's all very complicated, and as a Giants fan I feel a great deal of conflicting emotions these days. As though I've sold my soul to the devil. And King, this is going to drag out all season long, so fasten your seatbelt and keep the puke bucket close-by at all times. Yippee!!

It's a very long story, but I happen to be a lifelong Cowboys fan, and an SF Giants fan too. So I've got about three lifetimes worth of bad karma to work off just for my allegiance to those teams alone!

Some people don't seem to have the capacity to feel empathy at all. Generally we refer to these people as "Republicans."

But, isn't his job just to be a parrot for the administration? To repeat the words of the President and say whatever he is trained/told to say? I can't think of any substantive differences between McClellan and Ari Fliescher. Nor would I expect any from McClellan's replacement. Scotty is really fun to hate, though, I'll give him that.

So if Rove is moving over to work with the RNC, and gets indicted between now and November, that would be REALLY bad for congressional Republicans who were plannaing on distancing themselves from the White House. On the other hand, maybe this move is being made because its' becoming more certain that Rove won't be indicted after all. Time will tell.

My take has always been that Rumsfeld can't be fired because on paper, he's the most "qualified" person in that administration. I'm not saying he's at all competent, but that he's the only one in that circle who actually has the resumé for his/her job. Knowing how those guys think, it would send the wrong "message" to fire your best guy. How amazing is that? An administration that has Rumsfeld as its "show pony." Yikes!

On why he offered to resign over Abu Graib, but not now. "Oh (long pause)... Just call it idiosyncratic."

I think Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are funny, but I have generally been disappointed in them because they are just like the class clown who is really funny when the teacher's back is turned, but silent and well-behaved when it really matters most.

But Saturday night, Colbert was GREAT! Not only was the teacher right there, but so was the principal, the student council, and the whole damned PTA, for that matter. Great stuff, Stephen, take a bow!

"That's his argument in a nutshell: Those of us who grew up in the post-industrial, pop-culture-saturated West (and a whole lot of people who didn't) have been raised to believe that we are unique individuals with special destinies."

I was brought up to believe that. Christ, I'm 43 and my parents are still trying to feed me that line to this day. But I read Ecclesiastes when I was 20, and I got over that notion fast, even though it was difficult to swallow at the time. The thing that made it easier to digest, though, was knowing that it was the truth. How do you argue with that?

All that being said, a true rebel doesn't think about whether he's a rebel or not. A real rebel just is.

Nice article, Andrew.