Palin 1, Globe 0

Apparently your editorial board couldn't find anything in Sarah Palin's Hong Kong speech to criticize, but you felt obliged to uphold your editorial mission of disparaging her at every opportunity. The best you could come up with was a feeble insinuation that there was something unethical about the fact that...she got paid to give her speech? Don't people speaking to 1,100 bankers usually get paid?

You further mention twice this tricky "operator" "took home a bundle" from a "Communist" country, as if no one in Communist countries earns money. I wonder who's driving all those Mercedes and BMWs in China?

You also find fault with Palin because, unlike our craven Secretary of State, she criticized Beijing for its military buildup. If President Obama did so, you would praise him for speaking truth to power. Instead you hint that there's something unseemly about criticizing the government of the country where a private organization is paying you a speaking fee.

To top it off, you admit that you don't even know how much she was paid, so your entire argument based on speculation.

Palin 1, Globe 0.

Extreme Republicans

I agree with Neal Gabler ("The Extreme Republican Party, 9/12/09) that our political system benefits from having two parties with opposing ideological foundations. Mr Gabler, however, like too many of his fellow Democrats, approaches debate on current issues with an unfortunate extremism of his own. Rather than discuss global warming or the appropriate role of the federal government in end of life care, he labels any dissenters to the party line as deranged and beyond the pale. The President's health care address to Congress evidenced a similar self-righteous inflexibility toward dialogue: I'm right, you're wrong, so don't do a lot of talking and get out of the way of progress. And Mr. Gabler accuses Republicans of knowing only "how to polarize"?

Bickering

The Globe headline this morning reports that according to President Obama, "The Time for Bickering is Over." Bickering is what we used to call the legislative process, back when we had leaders who believed in democracy.