Maybe it's because I can still remember being a teenager, but...um... Ms. Lamott? You came across here as sort of a teenager yourself. You slapped your son because he gave you lip. Across the face.

Your teenage son is trying to assert his independence. And he IS right on schedule. I hesitate to think of what you'll do the first time he does something REALLY wrong, as all but Jesus Christ did, because here, you seem to have overreacted on such a level that ... well. Let's just say that I'd be giving you the silent treatment too.

And now, you've posted your version of the story -- even though you tried to make it at least a little bit balanced, I can tell, you failed -- for the entire world to see. Your ultimate revenge on a son who was being...a teenage son.

Congratulations?

...American Idol will go on. I must say, though, that at least some of the responses to your question were filled with so much smug self-congratulatory prose that I cringed at the writing even more than I cringe at Sanjaya each week.

I'm pretty impressed with your open-mindedness. Careful not to let your brain fall out.

I suppose in infantilizing the wife there can be a kinky range to it, but mainly it's just treating the wife as someone who never grows up -- who never outgrows the need for discipline -- who never is mature enough to make her own decisions. I'm not sure why 'consent' is even allowable within that context.

Having grown up in a fundamentalist household, I thought I knew just about every strange thing that goes on in there by first-hand experience. But this...this is new. It is dark. And it is just plain creepy.

The fact that it can be consensual is actually a little more disturbing to me than the knowledge that it goes on every day. To submit to that sort of thing as a viable way to handle a marriage is extremely frightening.

If Ted Nugent really said that, he SHOULD be wrung out on a rail for saying it. Prissily declaiming that Republicans would be all over it if Bruce Springsteen said it at a concert really doesn't mean much. Ted Nugent did, and we should excoriate him for it.

Man, you looked like you were eating a lemon while talking to Pat. Of course, I've always appreciated Molly Ivin's comment regarding him (more specifically, regarding his 1992 keynote speech at the Republican Convention): "It sounded better in the original German."

Pat Buchanan puts a slimy, auto-salesman sheen over the crap he peddles, but it's still crap, and readily identifiable as such.

I'd throw the book at these folks; give them the company! The most offensive part of it all was the attorneys' questions, asking her if she had any male organs or intended to have a surgical procedure to obtain them.

The woman seems to have been remarkably phlegmatic through it all. I know if the roles had been reversed (heh), I would certainly have been less understanding!

So.. the obvious thing is, with your analogy as the background -- there's no other dealer in town. You get to either purchase a car from this dealer, or you get to walk around town and get nothing done.

Unless, of course, there were suddenly two presidents, or some other Executive Branch that our good Democrats in Congress could appeal to.

...I'd probably have been wincing a lot more. But I'm still too busy hearing "US Out! U.N. In!" in my ears, over and over.

That's what he did. He was a lawyer who advocated for his clients. In trials. The only caricature being put on the profession here appears to be by .. you!

I don't understand this comic. It makes me feel base and pedestrian. Sigh.

And I understood it! They were actually saying that they'd read the...creatively cruel, passionately pointed...responses, if you pay attention. They're working on it, it looks like.

That's..heartening.

The art was very nice this time. The last panel was great.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it really seems like they have been paying attention.

Still don't get it. Last week was an anomaly, I guess.

Anonymity is generally just asking for trouble in a letters section, so I'm glad that it's being removed. I totally see the reasoning behind anonymity on Cary Tennis's letters section, though, and wish there were a way we could preserve it there and there alone.

And let's not kid ourselves, the entire article is one gigantic hypothetical, is that it requires Obama be the fixed point while everything else around him is allowed to change.

Why is Wilentz allowing himself to change the entire structure of the current Democratic voting process, allowing Hillary to react to things differently -- and not affording the same luxury to the Obama camp? Obama chose his strategy for winning the presidency based on the CURRENT party process.

Were the process different, there is absolutely no indication from this article that he would have worked things in the exact same way -- relying on caucuses, focusing on the smaller states, going for meager victories to keep things competitive; he likely would have approached the campaign from a completely different perspective.

To me, this is a strong enough problem with the article that it renders its entire point moot. I'm not sure why this merits Salon's usually excellent top-o'-t'-fold coverage.

Sycophant.

...and I actually rolled my eyes. Ok, I understand it, there's give and take in a primary season, especially one this long, but can you please let up on the Obama-rific bashing for a bit? If he wins the nomination, we're going to have to stand behind the man, and all this infighting is just scary.

A little balance wouldn't hurt you, Salon.

I ADORE Tom Tomorrow, but this week's was kinda.. dumb.