Green Party leader Medea Benjamin says, "There are a lot of people who are furious with the Democratic Party and they're not acknowledging that." But Benjamin doesn't acknowledge that there are even more people furious with the Green Party -- I'm one of them, and I voted for Nader in 2000 (I traded my Massachusetts vote for a vote in Minnesota). Look where we are now.

-- William Flesch

Wow. I went to Salon today (as I do every day) and saw that incredibly tasteless picture of Bush being "toppled" as if he were Saddam. I am appalled. To equate the two is simple-minded demagoguery that shows a lack of ability and will to make a case using facts and logic rather than emotion and cheap jokes. It also turns off the very audience you are hoping to motivate to stop Bush from being reelected.

Before you write me off as one of the frighteningly rabid Bush supporters our there, let me state my liberal credentials: I am a registered Democrat; I have never and will never vote for Bush; his arrogance and lack of compunction frighten me as do his terrifying domestic policies; and I am still waiting to see the WMD. He is not, however, a murderer, a sadist, a tyrant, or, for lack of a better term, an evildoer. And (sigh) he is our president.

Shame on you for resorting to such low levels. Had a conservative magazine published a similar picture of Clinton in the same kind of manner, your authors would have been apoplectic. Salon seems to be devolving from presenting an intelligent, for the most part evenhanded analysis of the day's events to promoting a decidedly far-left leaning agenda that has seemed to join the endless parade of why-Bush-is-evil outrage-of-the-week clan, and no longer has any semblance of fairness in its stories. Throwing in Andrew Sullivan and David Horowitz does not make you evenhanded. Live up to your own high standards lest I forget why I subscribed in the first place.

-- Amy Rubin

I found this article to be, for the most part, a very balanced piece about the chances of a Democratic candidate being able to win in 2004. However, there was one issue that was given short shift by those interviewed. There should have been more discussion of the erosion of our civil rights.

I am concerned about the economy, our standing in the international community and our growing state deficits, which are further pressured by the massive tax cut. I am also, however, extremely concerned that our national security forces can now target average citizens for surveillance without good cause.

Civil liberties are of concern for all citizens, regardless of party. That's why the very conservative Republican Bob Barr has been working with the ACLU to fight the current administration's efforts to erode civil liberties. Our liberties have already been eroded to the point where, if Ashcroft gets his latest expansion of enforcement power, we could see America changed into a police state for a long time to come.

I think this issue cuts across party lines and makes Bush vulnerable in an unprecedented way. Wasn't it Patrick Henry who said, "Give me liberty or give me death"?

-- Sharon White

[Read "Idiocy of the Week," by Andrew Sullivan.]

I was just about to write an e-mail about the Iraqi museum issue when I checked in and saw Andrew Sullivan had beat me to it. Salon very much hyped this issue when it first came out, with several front page stories and interviews. In the months since, as most of the original reporting has turned out to be false, or greatly exaggerated, you haven't published any sort of retraction or update -- certainly not on the scale of your original stories on the subject.

Publishing the Sullivan piece is important, but not enough, because people can easily disregard him as the token righty. I'm not a Republican, but I do put a lot of faith in Salon's reporting. As a journalistic institution, I think you owe your readers an update on this issue.

-- Ben Rapalee

Andrew Sullivan must be getting desperate for justification when he argues that "only" 33 objects were taken from the Iraqi museum, thus proving that Rumsfeld is "almost always right." Aside from the fact that losing 33 irreplaceable items of world culture is no cause for celebration, this still doesn't change the fact that the military broke promises to protect these treasures, and revealed true U.S. intentions by only sending enough troops in to guard the Ministry of Oil.

The fact that museum employees hid items in vaults and took them home without permission to guard them against such a fate is yet another sign that few people outside of the U.S. have any faith in the promises of the Bush administration. This issue will eventually come home to roost.

Sullivan calls the war an "extraordinary military victory" -- killing thousands of Iraqi civilians and trouncing a country that had little defense and no proven WMD? The only extraordinary thing about it is that it will set the stage for unjustified acts of violence the world over.

-- Janet Kaul

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