Oh Garrison,

Perhaps if enough of us joined the Republican Party, we could change the whole party and make them, well, intelligent, compassionate, and fun.

is an apt description of your writing these days. After that piece 2 weeks ago coming down on the side of no accountability, I keep hoping that you will revert to the Garrison of old, the one who wrote the scathing piece about Senators who voted for the Military Commissions Act in late 2006 that deprived detainees and "enemy combatants" of the right of habeas corpus, so I keep returning. No such luck, you are still over on the dark side and even writing about taking up residence there.

Sacre Dieu!! Maybe you should make that journey to South America and somehow return to the USA as the Garrison of old.

...you'd fit right in. Please do go. The rest of us have a nation's reputation and a Constitution to rebuild.

At least according to comments #2 and #3.

If you don't understand it, roll over in the mud and get fossilized.

I'm 68, a Vietnam vet, and a proud progressive.

No one wants to be persona non grata, so why make it worse with the comments about the cats? You cut me to the quick, and the music business was way over my head, but I liked it.

your opinion on torture prosecutions and your opinions on the other topics is that you actually believe the former, not the latter. Meanwhile, I love that passive-aggressive eff u to those of us justifiably offended by your bogus reasoning in the column 2 weeks ago. Speaking of which, set the date yet on the debate with Greenwald?

OR it may be constantly misdefined.

Recently I have found that my favorite CD is Wagner. I especially like Wotan's Fire Music, and if I had a daughter I would put her in a deep sleep and surround her with fire, to make sure only a decent guy would dare arouse her. Did Seigfried have a healthcare plan? No he had the Valkyries. Enough said.

Gary, Gary.

"Muslim" and "child torture" may never cross your lips, but it's nice to watch you back backpedal and splutter.

Somewhere, deep down, under all the condescending fake folksiness, you at last acknowledge that your opinions risked your sinecure in the Kingdom of Nice. You're a rich fuck, but not so rich as to risk Lands End cut-and-sewn cash and a lifetime supply of powdermilk triscuits.

Let's join hands on a Leinie's, eh, and sing it out?

Stjärnan ej på himlafästet,

Fågeln ej i kända nästet.

You have assuaged my anger and disgust for a brief respite and so you have my gratitude.

This ongoing clown show has worn me out and I am too susceptible to crankiness.

A generous heart and an open soul are the only ways to go.

and I agree with an earlier poster: some of the others here are seriously humor-challenged.

Guys, this is the Internet. Humor has to storm the castle gates even to get a word in edgewise. Forget irony - it's a mineral in woefully supply in the trolls' lives.

Garrison recently wrote this about holding the Bushies accountable for torture and other war crimes:

"What's needed here is not punishment, but truth. When I hear Democrats talk about "holding them responsible," I smell the sour righteousness of the victorious lording it over the vanquished."

"Let war crimes be bygones."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2009/04/29/retribution/index.html

He's a Republican alright!

Garrison are you playing the old fart card? I'm 63 and my 93 year old mother told me never to do that.Laws were broken,the Attorney General investigates,presents his evidence to a Federal Grand Jury and they decide who gets prosecuted,not you,not me.This is serious stuff. In the meantime,the Republican establishment has made some deals with the devil,Joe-The-Fake-Plumber-Wanna-Be-Wealthy Businessman,unrecalcatrant Confederates,frothing-at-the-mouth gun freaks,assorted religious fanatics,flat-earthers and xenophobes,but don't count them out.The Big Ones have too much at stake,they've made some strategic and tactical errors but they are not stupid.They will be back with a palitable,repackaged,redfined constituancy.Governor Crist is one example of who's coming our way.Keep your powder dry.I was peeved about your stance on torture but hey,what the hell,you can still like people with whom you disagree.

Read this brief bit about what our government has done.

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/hbc-90004954

And remember folks-Garrison Keiler, thinks no one should be prosecuted for using torture. He thinks the law is a fucking joke. And as long as he spews his views humorously some of you think he's a great guy. Perhaps he once was, but now he is an apologist for torturers. I don't think that I'm some kind of foolish liberal jerk to have a problem with that.

and I agree with an earlier poster: some of the others here are seriously humor-challenged.

So exactly where do you come down on the torture issue? Do you agree with GK that we should move forward, not take up valuable time by getting at the truth and holding torture's perpetrators accountable? That the nation gains nothing by looking back, other than time and lost opportunity to address more pressing issues? Is it not possible in your book for a long time reader and listener of his to be so blindsided by his totally out of character position on this issue that it colors, maybe permanently, one's ability to read his subsequent posts with anything approaching previous levels of appreciation. Alas, the bloom is off the rose, the gild is off the lily, and the emperor is no longer wearing his usual clothes.

Smug generally comes with victory; you don't have to join in the smugness, of course, but to be merely contrarian for its own sake is to let your politics be defined by someone else.

Next smug party you're at, tell them that you're in favor of a total ban on abortions from the moment of conception, no exceptions for rape or incest. Tell them that climate change is a left-wing hoax hatched by Al Gore. Tell them that the death penalty is a GOOD thing. Tell them that creationism needs to be taught in science classrooms. That we ought to waterboard our enemies, and use extraordinary rendition when we want to really good old-fashioned REAL torture applied.

Because it's all of a piece. That's the crankiness Cheney is talking about. Yours, I think you're just a bit bored with your own side.