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.

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!

— 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.

— Edward Gold, New York, NY

Despite Mr.Bush's bland assertion that "We don't torture", it seems we at least did during his administration. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was "waterboarded" 183 times for example, and I would wonder to what end was this done?

That this man was no beauty has to be admitted but why has this country reverted to medieval practices in dealing with prisoners? Sorry, but I think we need to be better than that! The idea that these people have done far worse does not excuse what we have done and I think the Golden Rule needs to be observed at all times (Do unto others what you would have done unto you.).

It is understandable that the Bush Administration doesn't want its crimes exposed but not to do so and not to punish those who committed them would only mean they would be repeated. This would include those who administered these tortures and the idea that the they were just following orders is a rather unacceptable echo of, for example, the Nuremberg Trials. It didn't wash then and won't wash now.

Barack Obama wants to "move on" and this is laudable but we cannot move on without dealing with what has already happened. There are some signs that this idea has somewhat penetrated the consciousness of the present administration.

We need a thorough investigation of these crimes and we and Congress need to make sure that they will never happen again.

Blago:

For example, former Illinois Governor Blagojevich is indicted=Illinois politics are corrupt=Obama is an Illinois Politician=Obama is corrupt! The wingnuts are foaming at the mouth and have, on no evidence whatever, indicted Obama. With these whackos, "Barry Hussein" is a Moslem terrorist unlike Dubya and Dick who are perfect gentlemen and think only of their country!

Can we just say "smear"?

Michelle Touches the Queen:

OMG: what a scandal! Though it seems the Queen touched Michelle first.

Michelle's fashion sense:

She doesn't care. Why should anyone else? OK, she's not a fashion plate like Jackie but neither, at this point, is Liz Windsor whose pink "old lady" dress was not much of a fashion statement. Of course, she and the other female Windsors have always been rightly characterized as "dowdy".

Barack has enough to worry about without this B.S. and I think his ill-thought-out economic policy and almost Bushian religiosity are more worthy of discussion than this.

In the opera house, singers can still get away with a great deal though I would still expect that Isolde would at least lie down after her "Liebestod" and not remain standing like an indominable Statue of Liberty as the final curtain is rung down because she's too fat to do otherwise.

On a video of an operatic performance, it becomes worse. Sticking with Wagner, in "Die Meistersinger", Ben Heppner, the ranking Wagner tenor, as Walther Von Stolzing the young knight, of course, cannot be young but can't we expect a singer in a partly-visual art to go to the gym if necessary? I'm well aware that only a mature singer is likely to be able to handle the part vocally. That this is Wagner's fault as someone told me, is not something I'd dispute but the question is, how do we handle it?

On a video presentation, the possibility exists of dubbing where a young actor lip-syncs to the operatic voice. Taken to the extreme in Syberburg's film of "Parsifal", we have, in the title role, not only one young man who does this but a young woman as well and often at the same time. But even  with these examples, modern European operatic productions can make this film seem rather old-fashioned in comparison.

That, though, is an entirely dfferent topic!

I am reminded that the soprano Deborah Voigt had gastric bypass surgery in an attempt to look svelte even if she gave other reasons so I think the handwriting has long been on the wall.

— Edward Gold, New York, NY