Potomac Confidential fills the midday lull with discussion by Metro columnist Marc Fisher of the latest news and a rigorous slicing and dicing of the issues that define who we are and where we live.

Fisher was online Thursday, Oct. 20, at Noon ET . This week Potomac Confidential dives into the Virginia governor's race, shudders at the rebirth of the D.C. baseball stadium debate, and visits Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan's launch of his campaign for Maryland governor.

Today's Poll

In his weekly show, Fisher veers wildly from serious probing to silly prattle, and is open to topics local, national, personal and more.

Archives: Discussion Transcripts

A transcript follows.

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Marc Fisher: Welcome aboard, folks. The big show is coming at you today from the bustling Montgomery County bureau of The Post in Rockville, where I spent the morning attending County Executive Doug Duncan's announcement of his candidacy for governor of Maryland. Best line: A very thinly veiled slam at Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, his rival for the Democratic nomination and author of the Orwellian slogan for his city's revival, "Believe." Duncan said of the sad state of the city of Baltimore: "You have to do more than 'Believe' that things are going to come out ok."

Speaking of odd slogans, Duncan's campaign slogan is "Think Bigger," which can be taken any number of ways. See today's poll right here on the big show for more on that. Please vote early but not often in this hour and we'll talk about the results later in the show. Other topics on the poll: How much do you have to earn to be rich? And who's really at fault in the Judy Miller/Scooter Libby leak story?

But the big story on Action News, as they say up in Philly, is today's column on the book banning controversy at Cabin John Middle School in Potomac. Lots of you have submitted comments already and that will be our lead-off topic today.

This week's other columns looked at a District man's efforts to open a cake store in a quickly-changing part of the city, and the city government's attempts to stall him to death, and Sunday's radio column in the Arts section visited the Shenandoah Valley, where a small-town radio station aimed at the 50-plus crowd is being replaced by the Valley's first Spanish-language station.

On to your thoughts and questions, after the Yay and Nay of the Day:

Yay to Adrian Fenty, Linda Cropp, Kathy Patterson and the other D.C. Council members who once opposed the city's deal with Major League Baseball for a new stadium, but now suddenly say the deal must stand as is. How'd that happen? Why, look who's running for office! Best I can tell, only council member David Catania, who is not running for either mayor or council chairman, is sticking to his vehement opposition to the city's deal with baseball. Still, the baseball deal hangs by some unimpressive threads; there are just too many things that can go wrong (and are.) Baseball needs to name an owner ASAP to create a force that can concentrate on making things go right.

Nay to the synagogues and other Jewish institutions, as well as an Islamic group in Baltimore, that have sought and accepted federal homeland security money. As reported by the Post's Caryle Murphy today, these groups got grants of up to $100,000 to bolster their security post-9/11. While those groups have every right and obligation to protect themselves, religious institutions should not be in the business of accepting tax dollars, especially when they are frequently in the position of criticizing government for crossing church-state lines. What credibility will temples have now when they seek to protest the use of tax dollars for creche displays and other examples of denominational bias on the part of government?

Your turn starts right now....

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Arlington, Va.: Re: Today's column.

It's hard to feel too sympathetic for the teacher. Suggesting that eighth-graders read "Final Exit" (the suicide how-to manual) or Madonna's "Sex" book is plainly an attempt to be shocking and hipper-than-thou, and the fact that a few extremist parents squared off against an extremist assignment doesn't strike me as unfair. As you pointed out, the dissenting parents aren't really complaining about Mark Twain or S.E. Hinton.

Moreover, we all know that a list like this is itself circumscribed so as not to include any books that make the average teacher uncomfortable. Did any of the books show the "very different lifestyles" of devoutly religious characters, for instance? Notably, banned books with conservative themes like "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" (banned in Howard County) or "Little House On The Prairie" (banned in a Louisiana county as offensive to Indians) are absent from the list.

Marc Fisher: The teacher didn't put together the list. (You can read the whole list for yourself by going to my column's page on the big web site---www.washingtonpost.com/fisher always gets you there, or there's a link on the home page. Look for the link to the list on the right side of the column.)

This list is an annual project of the American Library Association, so yes, there are a number of titles on there that you and I and most folks wouldn't want their 8th graders going anywhere near. But that was factored into the original assignment; parents were supposed to sit down with their kids and pick a good, appropriate, challenging book. Schools that reach out to families on projects like that are living up to one of the great truisms about education--it needs to be a family affair.

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Washington, D.C.: I saved today's column to show to my kids -- both are fortunate to go to a school that makes many of these books a part of its curriculum, thereby allowing the students to read and discuss controversial issues under the guidance of a teacher, and benefit from the views of their peers as well. For this type of education, however, we pay hefty private school tuition.

A second example of how few can protest and affect many -- I was recently in my neighborhood Safeway and a mother protested the story headers on a women's magazine and said she would not be able to bring her children in to to the store until the magazine was removed. The manager removed all copies of the issue, saying that they remove anything considered offensive after only one complaint. I asked if they would do the same with a news magazine that had Harriet Miers on the cover since I was offended that she may actually be seated on the Supreme Court and be able to affect the personal choices of my children and others in ways I likely would not agree with. Needless to say, he did not remove that magazine.

Marc Fisher: Ha! So much for his one-complaint-triggers-change argument. Just as politicians making land use decisions should go out of their way to discount the views of those who live closest to the proposed project, so should schools politely rebuff complaints from parents of kids who get a particular assignment. What's far more important is the value of an assignment to the larger student population, and in this case, thinking about what books are banned and why they're banned is good for any child (and adults too.)

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Brandermill, Va.: Mark, as a parent of a child who will go into middle school next year, I would support a reading assignment such as the one described in your column today, but I would question the judgment of the educator who placed "The New Joy of Gay Sex" on the list (and I'd feel the same way if it was "The New Joy of Sex"). That title does not fit with the others and is a book I suspect would hardly be described as "literature" in the way a Hinton or Salinger book would be. There are plenty of books that deal with the controversial topic of sexuality on a level eighth graders would understand. By including a title like "The New Joy of Gay Sex," I just think the school was trying to torpedo a very provocative and worthwhile assignment.

Marc Fisher: As noted above, the teachers didn't write the list--they just picked it up from the American Library Association. So it does include some titles that most parents would want their kids to steer clear of, and certainly no middle school teacher would recommend "Sex" by Madonna. But that's the whole point of the assignment, isn't it? It would have been ludicrous for the teacher to censor the list of censored books, right? That bit of sifting was appropriately left to parents, but alas, some of them took that a bit too far.

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Washington, D.C.: Marc,

While I think the teacher from your column was being very creative with her lesson plan, I have to question the appropriateness of including books like The New Joy of Gay Sex or American Psycho on the reading list. I myself have read American Psycho and there is just no way it is appropriate for an 8th grade English class. I appreciate the need for students to be exposed to new ideas, but it sounds like their teacher could have used a little judgment as well.

Marc Fisher: So as a parent, why not just say, let's read the Hinton or the Twain instead of the Psycho? Wouldn't that settle the issue in about four seconds?

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Laurel, Md.: Now, we should be able to make a common-sense distinction between Catcher in the Rye and The Joy of Gay Sex as appropriate high school English class material, beyond combining them into the group of "banned books."

I can certainly understand the argument of parents who don't want their kids reading sexual how-to manuals as an English assignment. It's a lot harder, though, to start drawing lines about cultural values and the right of parents to teach their children, for example, that many religions are false and inspired by the devil, that people of other races are inferior or attitudes about gender roles in our society.

Marc Fisher: I far prefer an assignment like this, where parents get to play as heavy or light a role as they wish in steering their kids' reading and values, to the attempts by all too many schools to force one set of values on children that may utterly contradict what parents are teaching at home. My daughter routinely comes home from school with tales of teachers pushing a hard line on one tough political question or another; she loves the debate and the challenge to her beliefs, and I like to see her struggling over such issues. But I like the open-ended idea of a list of banned books much more.

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Banned Books : If you allow a student to read Blubber then what's next, having the school band play The Devil Went Down to Georgia? Where will it end?

Marc Fisher: In Prince William County, I guess. (See Ian Shapira's story from earlier this week--Monday, I think--on efforts in that Virginia suburb to ban the Hylton high school band from playing that song.)

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McLean, Va.: Found your column today interesting and disturbing. I graduated from high school in Miami 8 1/2 years ago and my 10th/11th grade English teacher made this one seem tame. She had a reputation in the community for eccentricity. The license plate on her car was "2ND SIN," she showed us Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and "The Graduate" in class, and paired "The Scarlet Letter" with Toni Morrison's "Beloved" among other things.

Parents complained every year and the response always was, "Stop being a jerk and let the woman do her job." I learned more about analysis, writing and life from her than any teacher I've had before or since. Is the giving in to parents unique to this area or is it part of a broader national trend over the past decade?

Marc Fisher: Sadly, this sort of thing happens more and more all across the country.

I love your English teacher. The mere fact that you recall all that detail so well and used those assignments to draw larger lessons about how to learn and how to synthesize information shows what a good job she did. You should write her and let her know.

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Springfield, Va.: I'm guessing the people in an uproar over the Banned Book Assignment being canceled are the same people that would not hesitate to call the school to stop a prayer before a football game or graduation ceremony. (and vice versa)

I don't know about you Marc, but I think parent-outrage has jumped the shark.

Marc Fisher: Parent outrage will always be with us, and I far prefer it to the sad sight of parent absence from a school. But a principal's job is to listen to this sort of parent outrage, explain why the teachers area right (or open the issue to community debate) and move on.

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Potomac, Md.: How do parents expect their children to learn about different issues in the world if they continually shut down any attempts made by teachers to teach them something such as the project given at Cabin John? I'm a student at Churchill High School and I totally disagree with books being banned. Actually this year I'm taking AP English and one of our summer reading books was banned because of a complaint made by one parent. Personally I love to read on a variety of subjects and thankfully have parents who want me to be aware of different things going on in the world. But I mean some of these books that are banned are classics and show overzealous parents who jump at anything. I mean if you look at the list of banned books some are just completely ridiculous. For example, one of the books banned is Where's Waldo which is just crazy. I mean what can be so offensive in Where's Waldo. If we truly want to allow our kids a complete education we must allow them to be exposed to all aspects of life.

Marc Fisher: What book was banned because of one complaint?

"Where's Waldo?" made it onto the list because of one little Waldo-ish character in one of those intricate drawings; I believe it had something to do with some nooky.

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Sex by Madonna? : Ah, a literary classic. Certainly more socially acceptable than having a copy of Penthouse on one's coffee table. I'm sure Madonna has much to teach our nation's youth.

Marc Fisher: I want to hear from the parents whose kids chose that book to read for school. I want to visit that home.

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washingtonpost.com: 'Devil' Cast Out of Pr. William (Post, Oct. 16)

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McLean, Va.: I'm glad I don't have a child in Montgomery county schools. That is ridiculous. I can understand a parent not wanting their child to read certain books on the list, but if I understand the assignment correctly, it was to pick one book from the list and evaluate why it is controversial.

Do the parents that got the assignment pulled think that their children will be harmed just by reading the list of titles? They could certainly just steer their child to one of the more benign books.

About 15 years ago when I was in high school, we read Catcher in the Rye and one student's parent objected so he read a different book. It didn't (and shouldn't have) affected what the remainder of the class read.

What does it teach children to only read about the sanitized version of life? Literature is supposed to be thought-provoking. How else are the children going to develop into well-rounded informed adults?

If it matters, I have a two-year-old who will eventually go to Fairfax County schools.

Marc Fisher: I got a great email from a Montgomery County parent this morning who sent an outraged note to county school officials. He wrote, "Applying a 'Not Hurting Anyone' standard to literature would mean not teaching literature," and he is absolutely right.

Your high school teacher should have stuck to his guns and required that objecting student to read the assigned book--"Catcher" is something every teen should read.

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8th Grade Student: I saw the list and my parents and I picked out a Mark Twain novel. But, now that I've seen the titles such as "The Joys of Gay Sex" and "Sex" I just can't get it out of my mind. I. MUST. READ. The list has brainwashed me and all those years I've spent in my parent's loving home listening to their morals have completely vanished after one look at that list. Oh, that splendid list.

Please help me, I have no control over myself.

Marc Fisher: Yeah, kids all over Potomac are printing out that list and taking it with them under the covers at night. Of course, the fact that many of those kids go home every afternoon and spend three hours with murder-o-rama video games and Internet porn never seems to occur to the parents who raise objections to Harry Potter and Catcher in the Rye.

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Gaithersburg, Md.: I was appalled about the protest of the assignment discussed in today's paper. Isn't education supposed to to teach children to think and evaluate different ideas? This sounded like a great assignment. As an aside, my son's 11th grad AP English paper was to read Huckleberry Finn and research all the various pro and con opinions, then write a paper on why it should or should not be taught. This project launched many discussions with his friends of different races about race historically and currently in America and was one of the most meaningful assignments of his school career. We as parents should prepare our children for the world -- not protect them from it.

Marc Fisher: Sounds right to me--more on this later in the hour. But for now, a switch in topics.

And please take a moment to vote in today's poll.

Also, this appeal for help on a future column: If any of you Virginians have switched your intentions from Kaine to Kilgore or from Kilgore to Kaine in the past few weeks, I'd love to hear from you at marcfisher@washpost.com Thanks.

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Arlington, Va.: I can't wait until this election is over so I never have to see another Kilgore or Kaine TV commercial. I always change the channel as soon as one starts. I just can't take it anymore!

Marc Fisher: I have a sick fascination with political ads, so I watch them when I come across them, and the Kilgore spots seem much better made--they pack an emotional wallop, whereas the Kaine spots are dry and cliched. That said, the Kaine spots are a whole lot more, um, responsible.

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Reston, Va.: Why do you think Russ Potts got shut out of the Gov. debate. I think he would have blown both away, intellectually speaking.

What do you think of the Ken Plum issue with him raising the toll road fee. Seems like he is in the lead but I do not think most people in the Reston voting area are on top of the issues that much when looking at local races like this.

Marc Fisher: Potts wasn't in the debates because Kilgore made it clear that if Potts was in, Jerry was out, and no organizer of a debate would take the independent who's getting 5 percent in the polls over the Republican who is running neck and neck with the Democrat.

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Springfield, Va.: The Post editorials and all of the columnists in both the Metro and Style pages lean left, and many openly support Kaine over Kilgore. You are entitled to your opinions, but don't you think the paper should present some balance with even just one Metro columnist who will argue for Kilgore and the conservative side?

Marc Fisher: Only the editorial page makes endorsements. And I'm the only columnist in the news pages who has written on this race, and I think I've been an equal opportunity critic of both Kilgore and Kaine, both of whom I see as ducking the major issues facing Virginia. If you see imbalance or unfairness in the news stories, let's hear some specifics.

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Alexandria, Va.: So Marc:

I'm wondering if the story on the front page of the Metro section regarding the Md. reservist and his dog (A War Dog's Faithful Friend) moved you even one iota? I had to re-apply my eyeliner after getting through it, but it made me wonder what you thought?

Marc Fisher: Ruben Castaneda's fine feature this morning kept me reading, but at the risk of reopening our divisive debate about the proper emotional response to the plight of pets, I have to say that I was left with my same question: Why wasn't that powerful empathy and kindness directed at the many suffering children and other people in those bloody streets of Baghdad? Juxtapose this tale of soldiers adopting a dog in Iraq against this morning's harrowing report about video of U.S. soldiers torturing Taliban thugs in Afghanistan. Isn't something wrong here?

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Arlington, Va.: So, how many kittens did you torture to death this week?

Marc Fisher: Ok, I opened the door. And here it is.

But you deserve a response: Just enough to make a lovely scarf for the winter.

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Alexandria, Va.: What did you think of the story about Scout, the war dog? The Web site about this enterprise ( Supporting Military Mascots ) is amazing. Soldiers have been paying thousands of dollars to bring stray animals that they've fallen in love with back to the U.S. Astonishing!

Even more astonishing, some of them are cats! A dog, I could understand. But a cat? I dunno.

Marc Fisher: Aren't there enough unwanted, mistreated pets back home that could use that kind of attention?

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Washington, D.C.: Marc,

I don't support the no tolerance rule D.C. had in place and I'm glad the council did something to change it, but why did it all of a sudden become such a big issue last week? Hasn't this policy been in place for a long time? The Post had the initial article about the Virgnia woman being arrested one day, then an op-ed, a Tom Toles cartoon, an article in Metro, and an article in Style the following day, and one more article in Metro the day after that. Does the woman who was arrested have connections at the Post and did she ask for all this coverage? I remember hearing that this rule was in place a few years ago, and I'm sure others have had similar experiences to the woman in Virginia. I'm just curious why it wasn't until last week that it became big news.

Thanks

Marc Fisher: This was all the result of the reporting by the Post's Brigid Schulte, whose story last week documented the case of a single mom, a lawyer who got nabbed for having had one drink. But of course she wasn't nabbed just for having imbibed a glass of wine. She got stopped for driving in a way that attracted police attention--her headlights are off. So I'm left wondering why this is all such a big deal? Even before the D.C. Council's frenzied reversal of the law, the rule was that cops had to see some poor driving behavior before they could stop you--only then could they check your alcohol level.

But it was a great story that raised a huge ruckus among readers, citizens, voters, and the system has responded. A beautiful example of how things can work. And no, nobody in the story had any connection.

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Doug Duncan 4 guvna: In addition to the doughnuts tie-in, there's also Duncan Hines and yo-yos. The yo-yo comparisons may even be better than doughnuts.

Marc Fisher: Duncan is the brand of yo-yos, huh? Wow. Hey, at the Duncan announcement this morning, they were serving from big boxes of...Dunkin Donuts.

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Washington, D.C.: Given the fact that O'Malley is way ahead of Duncan in Democrat support, do you see Duncan withdrawing from the primary race.

What are O'Malley's chances in a race against Ehrlich?

Marc Fisher: Duncan won't drop out--his speech today was quite good, vastly more specific and well written than O'Malley's announcement. Yes, Duncan is the underdog, but he'll have some real money and real support in the D.C. suburbs. Can he make inroads in the Baltimore area? Hard to say this far from the election, but it's possible. Baltimore city is not exactly hugely popular in those suburbs up there.

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A Philly-area native: I grew up on Action News. Here's a question that my husband (also a Philly-area native) and I were discussing: do any other local news shows have theme songs -- with words -- like Action News does? I love theirs:

"Move closer to the world, my friends

Take a little bit of tiiiiime

Move closer to the world, my friends, and you'll see ..."

My husband thought that was an archaic, '50s-era throwback since that station's been around forever, but so have many other local stations (especially in this area). Do any other stations have special theme songs like Action News? They should!

Marc Fisher: Somewhere on the web I found sound files of the Action News song, surely one of the great cultural achievements of the latter half of the 20th century. The same song was used as a news theme in many cities, not just Philly. Sadly, the Action News theme and format has vanished pretty much everywhere but Philly. The bozos who run the station tried at one point to drop the theme music, but the public response was immediate and huge: Keep the song! It's the single greatest thing about television news.

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Tysons, Va.: Marc, do you and Gene plan on getting together in your Yankee regalia to smoke cigars and commiserate while watching the Astros play the White Sox?

Marc Fisher: There are two ways Gene and I can go on this Series. Root against the 'Stros because Clemens and Pettitte were traitors to the Yankees. Or root for the Chisox because Contreras has proven Yankee management to have been shortsighted. Go pale hose.

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Washington, DC: Marc, Did the Montgomery County reading list contain the classics, "The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death," and "I'm with Stupid"?

Marc Fisher: Goodness, the Weingarten contingent is out in force. No, Gene's books do not appear on the Banned and Challenged Lists because the book banners out there find Gene to be cuddly and delicious, and because they did smack with him back in the day.

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Dunn Loring, Va.: My question is, How many rapes have to occur before every single street light around the Dunn Loring Metro station is fixed and delivering light again? Lots of lights out in the parking lot and an important one over I-66 that helps pedestrians walking on the Gallows Road overpass to the station. I asked a cop the other night, and he said they did a crime analysis and noticed the lights out. That was a week ago, and the lights are still out. I've started writing politicians, don't know what else to do.

Marc Fisher: Metro folks are often lurking here, so let's hope they read this.

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Kilgore: Aside from making sure people on death row get fried, sex offenders are tracked by GPS for the rest of their lives and widening 66 what, exactly, does Kilgore intend to do as governor? I believe in the death penalty in certain cases but his ads make me wish I could climb through my TV and slap everyone involved in those commercials.

Need I say that I'm voting for Kane? Maybe if we don't vote for either of them the politicians would get the message.

Marc Fisher: He also likes lethal injections.

No, seriously, he mentions the various major issues--transportation, crime, taxes, education, taxes. Oh, and taxes too. But mainly what Kilgore proposes is a vast increase in state spending, with no explanation of how he'd pay for anything other than the usual blather about cutting waste.

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Vienna, Va.: I noticed Kaine is interested in the hot development debate now in Northern Virginia, but so far has bookended Fairfax (where the Board is peopled almost completely with Democrats) with visits to Prince William and Loudoun. What do you make of that? Should he visit Fairfax too?

Marc Fisher: Kaine has been to Fairfax and just this morning had Fairfax and other northern Virginia local officials on a press call about the candidates' efforts on transportation here. Kaine must win Fairfax to win this race. You'll see a lot of him here in the final days of the campaign. But no, he still doesn't have a plan for transportation, other than to widen 66 in one direction only and get rail to Dulles built.

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Arlington, Va.: I found those Kilgore ads distasteful, but the logic of Kaine's rebuttal ads is pretty weak. Basically he is saying my religion requires me to be against the death penalty, but as an elected official, I will enforce the law. Okay, so if the law required him to enforce segregation laws, he would?

Marc Fisher: Very good analogy. It's kind of astonishing that Kaine sticks to that line of explanation after all these months. Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin called me after my last column on this topic and argued that it is a right and good position for a Catholic politician to say that while his faith requires him to oppose abortion, he supports the right to choose because that is the law and he is sworn to uphold the law. But here's the difference between Obey and Kaine: Obey, because he believes that abortion is wrong, looks for ways to minimize the number of abortions that are performed. He uses his position to argue for alternatives to abortion. Kaine, on the other hand, has said that he has no intention of arguing against the death penalty even though his principles lead him to oppose it. I just don't see how a politician, who is elected in part for his values and beliefs, can say that he will then ignore those values when he's elected.

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Burke, Va.: Kilgore's enunciation -- why doesn't Kilgore work with a voice coach to deepen his voice? His voice is all wrong for a politician. And it's not the regional accent that drives me crazy -- people from Southwest Virginia have beautiful accents.

Marc Fisher: It's not the deepness of the voice that has drawn so much attention but rather the combination of the twang and the highly sibilant S's. There's all sorts of ungrounded nonsense on the blogs about Kilgore's manliness or sexuality, and that stuff is just as disappointing as the Kilgore ads that use the death penalty and Hitler to try to rip Kaine.

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Sex and politics: Dear Marc,

I plan to boycott your weekly chat if you continue to use the words "sex" and "politics" in your responses. Get your mind out the gutter young man.

Marc Fisher: Two more of those responses, and I'll have to shut down this whole sex- and politics-fest.

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Damascus, Md.: Hi Marc,

Based on the responses posted so far, and on the quotes from the unidentified parents who raised concerns, I'd say that the majority of people involved never took the time to really understand the assignment. They just saw "sex" or "gay sex" and formed an (negative) opinion.

And the school just catered to such reaction ism without explaining the assignment, how the parents retained the control over the selection of the book, or even letting parents opt out of the assignment entirely? No wonder our public schools are in poor shape. No good policy can hold up under if the bar is that high (i.e., no complaints).

Do you think this example is typical of how schools in Montgomery County develop and implement policy?

Marc Fisher: Good question--I think this sort of thing varies quite a bit from school to school and is highly dependent on the personal strength and character of the principal. There are principals who go running to the central administration at the slightest whiff of controversy, and of course, once they do that, the gig is up, because the lawyers will get involved. And there are principals who just handle this stuff because their chief goal is to protect the students, teachers and the learning process. Those principals are generally adored by parents, even by those who disagree with their decisions.

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Potomac, Md.: My son was in that class last year and it is the one assignment that is still discussed in our home. He got more out of having to walk through the minefield of choices (with our suggestions), than he probably got from the assignment itself. I applaud the teacher and I am discouraged that the principal did not give her any support and closed down the assignment. I hope the teacher uses this as a teaching opportunity to show her students that censorship is alive and well in Montgomery County and in the school itself.

Marc Fisher: Yes, I've heard from a great many Cabin John parents who loved the assignment and whose kids recall it as their favorite. I wish the teachers would just bull ahead and use the assignment no matter what the principal says, but alas, that sort of courage is rare these days.

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Up Mo, Md.: Marc, your second question in the poll didn't have the answer that I wanted, so I couldn't answer it.

What I needed was:

Judith Miller and the Times because they have not been straight with readers and because they created a publicity stunt to protect an extremely powerful government official who had already given her written permission to spill her guts.

Marc Fisher: That's good. The key fact here is that the Times hired a constitutional lawyer from the get-go, creating a First Amendment conflict where there wasn't necessarily one. The other news organizations in the same predicament hired criminal lawyers and addressed the grand jury problem on that level, working out the same sort of narrowing of potential questions that they would in any criminal case, and they thus put the whole weird issue off the Huge National Confrontation level.

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Marc Fisher: The Poll:

Most of you say someone is rich if they're making $200k or $300k. Most folks who make that kind of money would argue that they're not even close to rich. But of course they are. And 84 percent of you say that $100,000 doesn't mean rich anymore, and I think that's right, and a sign of a pretty substantial change in thinking over the past decade or so.

On the Miller case, you're reaming the Bush administration and its secretive ways, and you're right, but so are several of the other options on this question. We're not equipped to handle multiple responses on our survey software, so this was a somewhat unfair choice you had to make. So, playing by the same rules, I'll pick A, Miller and the Times, because if they hadn't chosen to do the whole jail/martyr routine, this would have been a much milder issue. (But the real culprit here is the foolish special prosecutor law, which almost guarantees wild witch hunts.)

You like the Nanny slogan for Doug Duncan's campaign best. The real one among those choices is "Think Bigger," which Duncan rather artfully used in his speech this morning. If he injects some humor into how that slogan plays out in his ads, it might connect with voters. It's grown on me in its first 24 hours.

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Sumpnspicious?: Marc,

On the Metro today I noticed a new ad: it was the word "sumpnspicous" and a definition which said something like, if you see an unattended bag, you should call the train operator. "Sumpnspicious"? Are they making light of terrorist threats? Or making fun of a regional accent? Either way, it doesn't instill a lot of confidence in Metro's preparedness.

Marc Fisher: This is apparently part of a larger ad campaign that I haven't seen--maybe it's an effort to break through the skepticism we all have about homeland security and color codes and all that stuff. All I know from the start is that we're paying for this.

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Washington, D.C.: Kaine and the death penalty.

I thought that's what all government officials are supposed to do -- support the law, and leave their religious views at home.

There are plenty of laws and public policies I find morally offensive, but until they are changed I follow them when I have to.

Kaine's rationale makes reasonable sense to me.

Marc Fisher: Sure, you have to follow the law, but you're free to speak your mind, and if you're asking people to vote for you, you're doing so in part because you believe that you hold some core principles that will help make a better society. How does it make sense to ask people to vote for you because you promise to be silent about what you believe in most deeply?

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Another Virginia Voter: Mark -- Last week you told a voter not to sit out of the Virginia election because "nobody wins from that." I agree but I'm wondering if I should vote for the candidate I want to win (Potts) or one of the other guys. In Virginia, does the winner need a majority or a plurality? Should I try to vote for the lesser of two evils -- and that is an understatement? Thanks!

Marc Fisher: That's one of the toughest questions a voter faces. I have many times in my voting career voted for people who had zero chance of winning, simply because I thought it was the right thing to do. But on at least two occasions, I've been persuaded to swallow my principles (uh-oh, I'm in Kaine country) and vote for someone who had a chance to win but whom I loathed, and I did so because he was far less offensive than the likely winner. I guess it comes down to you calculation about how close the vote is and whether your vote and others like yours could make the difference. In this race, it could--all the polls show K and K virtually tied.

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Vienna, Va.: Dear Mr. Fisher,

Heard you were at the Monday night "visioning" exercise at Madison, H.S. What do you think about developers utilizing concepts such as smart growth to justify development two miles out from the proposed transit stations? Why do you think FFX supervisors DuBois and Hudgins went for this new "visioning" format rather than taking cues from what's been successfully done in Arlington (weighing business interests equally with impacted neighborhoods, protecting strong neighborhoods)?

Marc Fisher: Sunday's column will deal with this new and spreading method of absorbing public opinion.

I haven't really made up my mind on the merits of the proposed rezoning of the Hunter Mill area between Tysons and Reston, but I do know this: The argument that this development is smart growth is just silly because this property is almost two miles from any proposed Metro station. It's just not transit oriented development and therefore is quite different from the proposed MetroWest development at the Vienna station. That said, there are strong arguments for and against the Hunter Mill development and I will get into those in a future column.

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Millions More March: What is your take on it? Did it accomplish anything?

Marc Fisher: It's a sad distraction, led by a charlatan who harms the very people he purports to want to help by leading them down a path of separatism and hatred. Sure, Farrakhan makes some people feel good by building a sense of solidarity and purpose. But his big march a decade ago had no impact beyond that feel-good impact, and this one won't either.

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Metro neologisms doorker: I think some radio station said that the new word for Metro's escalators should be "stairs."

Marc Fisher: Excellent!

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Clemens and Pettitte are Houston natives ... and Feingold had the funniest ad: Marc,

I'm a lifelong Red Sox fan who grew up in Conn., and if you think Clemens pitching for Houston is a slap in the face, imagine what Sox fans thought about Clemens and Boggs in pinstripes.

Sen. Feingold, in his first run for office (I think it was for the House), ran a cheesy ad where he knocked on his opponent's door and found he wasn't home, went to his opponent's office and found he wasn't there and tried another place or two, all to no avail. His message was that the incumbent wasn't there for his constituents. Needless to say, Feingold won. One of my professors in grad school at BU showed us a bunch of TV ads in our political campaigning class. And, we got to talk to former Gov. Dukakis ... yes, we asked him about 1988 and Willie Horton.

Marc Fisher: Bosox and Yankee fans are united for once, in some combination of despair and resentment.

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Why is the DUI law a story? Here's' why: White female lawyer. How many other people of varying ages, races, occupations, and socioeconomic standing had been arrested for the same thing? And how many do you think would have been able to get a newspaper story out of it? I'll wait while you count on one hand ...

Marc Fisher: So this is a corollary to the Missing White Woman phenomenon? Seems a bit of a stretch, but there is some truth to what you say.

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Re: Dunn Loring Metro: I agree! I don't know what's wrong ... the police presence has been upped nicely, but the lights around that place suck.

To the other reader -- maybe we should combine efforts and hopefully get some response!

Dunn Loring Metro needs to be safer ... 3 rapes in 3 weeks is COMPLETELY unacceptable.

Marc Fisher: You need to get in their faces to get new lights installed.

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Re: Kaine and the death penalty: Marc, you said "How does it make sense to ask people to vote for you because you promise to be silent about what you believe in most deeply?"

What the candidate himself believes is irrelevant. He's running on what the voters believe in.

I expect politicians to be dishonest with the voters, but not with themselves. That's why I'll never be one, and why perhaps Kaine should be one either.

Marc Fisher: Good point. But of course voters have become nearly as cynical as the pols themselves, so we're hard put to accept it when politicians do take principled stands.

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The classics: Bring back Fun with Dick and Jane!

Marc Fisher: Ah, but it's on the Banned List! (Nah, not really, but I'm sure it will be soon.)

Thanks for coming along, folks. Back in the paper on Sunday and here with you again next week. The poll is still open.....

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