s it not highly predictable that the arrest of five rabbis will bring the anti-semites out from under their rocks?

Religion in general, like politics, has always been a fertile field for corruption and none of the "faiths" has been immune from it.

I don't think any group should be singled out for their supposed corruption. All human beings err, some to a greater degree than others.

As Jesus is quoted as saying, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

Two people at least took issue with my remarks and I am unable to answer back as "comments are no longer being accepted."

But I wasn't meaning to call the article "anti-semitic" or to criticize it but rather several of the other comments, in fact. Perhaps I'm overly sensitive to these stories as they happen but I didn't apparently make myself understood.

It seems that Mr. Obama is now in the process of throwing the progressives under the bus:

1. He is permitting a valuable Arabic translator to be fired for the "hideous crime" of being gay thus putting our security in, not less, but more jeopardy.

2. He has put a corporate lawyer  for the big pollutors in charge of environmental protection. This is like putting the proverbial fox in charge of the henhouse.

3. He has backtracked from his promise to abandon the terror tribunals at Guantanamo Bay and has put in jeopardy his promise to close the base next January. In this respect he has been morphing into Dick Cheney. But I'm sure he will modify this decision by cutting in half the amount of waterboarding that went on on under the Bushies.

4. Last but not least, he has refused to release the torture photographs or to prosecute the criminals of the Bush Administration. This is tantamount to locking the barn door after the horses have escaped.

 Press Secretary Gibbs is rapidly morphing into Scott McClellan and our dear president into our even more admired, George Dubya Bush.

Damn the voters: give them the cute Sasha and Malia, their cute dog Bo and Michelle's arms and they'll forgive anything!

Now let me get this straight: Mr. Douthat wanted sick old Dick Cheney to run for president in 2008 so he could lose by a landslide and remake the Republican Party as a more palatable (to him) conservative entity? As opposed to the "mavaricky" McCain (a closet liberal)?

What has Ross been drinking? Or is he trying to define himself as a "good" conservative as opposed to the wacky Dick? And hoping his brand of "sensible" conservatism wins out over that of Cheney and Company?

Cheney could not have handled the physical requirements of a campaign which even McCain was barely able to. And I doubt the GOP would ever have nominated him as they were trying to distance themselves from the Bushies.

As for saying that the Democrats would be out of their minds to investigate torture in the Bush Administration, I would only say that I think this is out of their hands. I believe that it will be investigated whether anyone of any party likes it or not; too much has come out already.

I think Ross Douthat is in the unenviable position of trying to make lemonade from the lemons that he has inherited, but I don't think this is a very auspicious beginning for his tenure at the Times.

— Edward Gold, New York, NY

Apparently, my comment on Ross was too negative for the Times as it is nowhere to be found. No matter, I've put it here.

It really is too bad that the "Gray Lady" feels it necessary to cover up its poor judgment in its choice of columnists.

Mr. Rich is right on the money! There is no doubt that the Bushies wanted to sell a war in a country which was absolutely unrelated to 9/11 and, to that end, would stop at nothing to establish a fake connection between Al Quaeda and Iraq.

Mr. Obama's administration released the torture documents and Barack has got to be in a state of denial if he thinks there will be no consequences and we should "put this all behind us". Too late for that!

Yes, Rich is correct in writing that none of this information is new but bluntly exposing this to the public view now, I think, has only one purpose.

Obama is a bright man and he knows what he is doing, even if he says the opposite of what he knows is going to happen.

Let the investigations and the trials begin!

— Edward Gold, New York, NY