Post Metro columnist Marc Fisher was online Thursday, Jan. 18, at Noon ET the Virginia debate over an official apology for slavery, Maryland's new governor, and the story of the Reston man who was ticketed for hiring a day laborer in a Herndon parking lot.

Today's Column: Words Hurtful, but Also Helpful, To Slavery Apology's Advocates ( Post, Jan. 18)

Check out Marc's blog, Raw Fisher.

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.

A busy morning, and a sad one around here: Post columnist Art Buchwald died this morning, but as he'd be the first to say, we're all glad he missed deadline this time--by a long stretch. Buchwald's columns written from the Washington Home hospice last year were a revelation and a joy, a good-humored poke in the eye to those who thought Buchwald was about to depart this world.

(More about his hospice stay here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/02/AR2006100200958.html)

Lots to talk about today, including Maryland's new governor, Virginia's latest struggle over whether to officially apologize for slavery, and the growing battle over Mayor Adrian Fenty's plan to remake the D.C. schools. But two other issues leap forward this morning, and they're also the subject of today's Yay and Nay of the Day:

Yay to Art Buchwald, not only for his pioneering columns from Paris back in the day, but for being a great citizen of Washington and neighbor in Georgetown, his home for half a century. Buchwald used to hang out at the Georgetown Pharmacy on Wisconsin Avenue with the likes of Ben Bradlee and Edward Bennett Williams; it was Buchwald who finally persuaded an Iranian merchant named Jacob Soleiman to buy out the old corner drugstore from Harry "Doc" Dalinsky so that Doc could retire. Soleiman once told me about the time Buchwald took him out and cajoled him into buying the drugstore and maintaining it just the way Doc Dalinsky had kept it for 48 years: "I did Doc a favor," Soleiman said. "He was a good friend of mine. We went out with Buchwald, you know, the funny guy, and he said, 'Let Doc go and relax.'" The funny guy was also a good guy.

Nay to the Herndon town council for enacting a mean-spirited law that prohibits anyone from trying to hire someone who is standing on a public sidewalk or street. Intended to prevent day laborers--mainly illegal immigrants--from getting work, the obviously unconstitutional law is being challenged by a Reston man who was ticketed for hiring a couple of guys to do yard work. The law is downright ridiculous; if applied literally, it would prevent you and me from hiring a kid on the block to shovel snow or mow the lawn. Day labor pools are a problem and deserve real solutions; banning Americans from doing business in public isn't the way.

Your turn starts right now....

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Arlington, Va.: Submitting early due to meeting: I emailed Del. Hargrove, criticizing his remarks, and he actually responded, saying I "misinterpreted" his remarks, and that he was simply making a rhetorical point. Frankly, statements like Hargrove's make Southerners look like a bunch of ignorant crackers who are itching to pull their white sheets out of the closet and go on parade. Hargrove is an embarrassment to the Virginia House of Delegates and Hanover County.

washingtonpost.com: Words Hurtful, but Also Helpful, To Slavery Apology's Advocates ( Post, Jan. 18)

Marc Fisher: Ah, but I would have predicted that Frank Hargrove would get back to you as promptly as he did; he's a throwback to another era, and his view of the world is all too black and white, but he's also what we need more of in legislatures: A guy who's in it to serve and to represent people, not to line his pockets.

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Vienna, Va.: Mark,

Regarding Del. Hargrove's comments:

Please educate me. Who is supposed to apologize to whom and for what? I certainly regret the fact that slave owners held people as property many years ago as well as the Holocaust, the Inquisition and other examples of man's inhumanity to his fellow man, but at what point do we stop obsessing over the past? Can we look forward and build a better society with constructive interaction among all people or are we destined to continue this bickering over issues that are too obscure to pin actual responsibility on anybody currently living or offer benefits to those who are too removed from direct involvement of their slave heritage? My great-great grandfather was killed in action in the Union army. If you think I owe slave descendants an apology, then I should start pressing for a formal thank you for my sacrifice.

Marc Fisher: Thirty years ago, many of us would probably have predicted that within a generation or two, race would be a far less searing and dominant issue in American society. And in fact, I'd argue that it has become a much less divisive question. But obviously, it has not gone away and continues to be a troubling and difficult matter in so many aspects of life--work, school, politics, housing. But race is becoming less important in so many of those areas, even in sex, family and other intimacies. So I wouldn't expect questions like that of the official apology to go away for another couple of generations, but I do think that intermarriage will eventually make most of these issues dissipate.

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Burke, Va.: Marc,

Gotta disagree with you on the need to apologize for slavery. There's NO ONE alive today, directly affected by the "peculiar institution." If we want to apologize for the 100-plus years of Jim Crow that followed, that is something else. Then we CAN apologize to people impacted by a particular policy.

Marc Fisher: I'm not sure the "no one still alive from that era" argument has any relevance: Surely we'd all agree that race is still a powerful divide in this country, and that that stems in some way from slavery. So if the issue is that stinging even now, then maybe there are still things left to say about slavery.

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Arlington, Va.: As a professional historian, I hope that no one ever "gets over" the past. I think that the old chestnut "Those who forget the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them," holds value, so long as we do not take it too literally. For example, it gets a little tedious to hear people raise the specter of Auschwitz in response to relatively, and I repeat relatively, benign manifestations of ethnic harassment. Whether the issue is the Holocaust, or African slavery, I wish we would use the opportunity to study the context in which these atrocities arose to examine how it was that societies were able to ignore the humanity of whole categories of people. Simply to label it "hatred" or "prejudice," only scratches the surface of the issue.

Marc Fisher: Nicely said. It's just way too easy to lump all societal misdeeds into one bucket and to tar past generations with labels like "hatemonger." It's much more interesting and revealing to try to get into the heads of folks like Thomas Jefferson to understand how they were able to advance high ideals in their professional lives, yet countenance slavery in their personal lives. Anytime we try to explain the past through the prism of our own contemporary values, we lose the real thread of history.

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Poolesville, Md.: Can it possibly be true, as claimed by his office, that 9 percent of the letters and phone calls to Del. Frank Hargrove's office support his comments on slavery and Jews? If so, what another black eye for Virginia.

My wife and I are retired. We sometimes consider moving to the commonwealth, primarily because of lower taxes,but just can't bring ourselves to do it. I realize Northern Virginia wouldn't buy into this, but we can't afford to live there. The rest of the state scares me silly.

Marc Fisher: Not 9 percent, but 90 percent is what Hargrove claims the support is for his opposition to an apology for slavery. Of course the numbers don't matter. The fact is that comments like Hargrove's will always bring out the undercurrent of antipathy toward blacks, Jews or anyone else who is the "other." I'm hearing from people in Richmond who watch the legislature closely that the apology may well pass this session--and that is probably more telling than Hargrove's comments and the support he's heard for them.

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Washington, D.C.: Marc --

All I know about the incident regarding Del. Hargrove comes from your column, so maybe I'm missing something. But the quotes attributed to him strike me as saying little more than that he doesn't see the point in people self-righteously apologizing for things that someone else did. Unless there was more to it than your quote, his statement about the Jews seemed to me plainly rhetorical, reaching for an extreme example to illustrate his point, and meant to indicate that he thought Jews obviously should not apologize for killing Jesus. I'm a Jew, and easily offended by anti-Semitic comments (like just about anything that emerges from Jimmy Carter's mouth or pen these days), but this one didn't trouble me at all.

But whatever Hargrove thinks, I sure don't think much of these "apologies," which amount more or less to "We're sorry that these other people weren't as morally superior as we are." It's in the same apology family as "If I offended you I'm sorry that you feel that way" -- which is to say, it evidences no personal regret whatsoever.

Oh and by the way, I'm really sorry about that tsunami a few years ago. Please accept my regrets.

Marc Fisher: I'm not much for official apologies, either. They seem too self-congratulatory and there's something troublingly ahistorical about them--the apology implies that the folks back in the old days could have and should have known better, which isn't always the case.

But there is a power to such apologies and having seen the difference between how Germany and Austria have handled the Nazi history, I've learned that confronting history head on makes a real difference in the current generation. Young Germans sometimes feel like they're being hammered over the head with guilt for the Nazis' crimes, but the level of knowledge about and thinking through that period is far deeper in Germany than in Austria, where the Nazi time has been far less the subject of examination or apology.

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Richmond, Va.: I'm a Republican who is appalled by the Hargrove comments. The party has enough difficulty connecting with African-American voters even without comments like Hargrove's.

Why didn't Speaker Howell or Ed Gillespie offer real criticism of Hargrove? Gillespie didn't defend Hargrove, but Howell's response seems almost disengaged from reality. Comments like Hargrove's are damaging to the GOP. Do party leaders not get this?

Marc Fisher: Good point--the fact that the Virginia GOP has now had to deal in quick succession with the George Allen macaca moment and then Rep. Virgil Goode's slam against Islam and Muslim congressman Keith Ellison's decision to be sworn in using a Koran, and now this Hargrove business, is certainly not good for the party's efforts to reach out beyond its white base. I would have thought that the state GOP would be trying to separate itself from these incidents, but you hear far more in the way of apology for Hargrove. It's another example of the NoVa-RoVa divide, about which more here....

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Bethesda, Md.: I suspect that the differences between NoVa and RoVa over traffic and taxes are only the edge of the wedge -- the two pieces of Virginia are, in the near future, going to become a classic political division -- much like the division between NYC and upstate NY or between Chicago and downstate Illinois.

Marc Fisher: Oh, I think it's there already, don't you? This is a classic cultural divide, and it's got all the elements: Rich, secular, urban, increasingly blue part of the state feels like it's subsidizing the more struggling, religious, rural, solidly red part of the state--and this plays out on so many issues: Taxes, transportation, schools, culture wars questions. It's a godsend for politicians, journalists and advocates--not necessarily so good for folks who just happen to live here.

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Falls Church, Va.: I tend to think of the Hargrove issue as a generational one. My grandfather, who grew up in an upper-class Richmond household, says things that make me and my sister cringe. But correcting him would be for naught. He's not necessarily racist. He has spoken out against segregation and all that he went through in life and actively fought against poll taxes while he was on the Fairfax Co. Board of Supervisors in the '60s, but he holds deep prejudices which show through whenever he talks about people who are different from him. I feel Hargrove has some of the same qualities, yet I agree with him in the sense that, who is apologizing and to whom? If we are simply issuing a proclamation that our state was wrong for its past practices, I guess thats a nice gesture even if it does nothing to affect anyone's quality of life. I just want our legislators to fix our roads!

Marc Fisher: Ah, yes, that. The roads. We've been just hours away from a big announcement of a compromise for about, um, a week now. And with every passing day, we hear from more lawmakers in both parties who are fully prepared to reject said compromise. Should be an interesting session in Richmond.

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MASN: Marc,

About your blog entry yesterday RE: MASN and Angelos ... let me give you a resounding "Amen!"

washingtonpost.com: Raw Fisher The Angelos Channel: All-Baltimore, All the Time ( washingtonpost.com, Jan. 17)

Marc Fisher: Thanks--very mixed reaction on the blog yesterday when I detailed how MASN, the supposedly Washington- and Baltimore-oriented cable channel that Angelos controls, is really almost entirely a Baltimore show. No love for Angelos out there, but at least some folks don't mind that nearly everything but the Nats games will be Baltimore-centric.

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Washington, D.C.: MASN (and regional sports networks in general) often strive to get local firms to pay a premium for advertising. It's typically rationalized as an investment in the club which will pay dividends in the future once the team is contending for championships. While this logic may have some merit for Baltimore, it falls completely apart for Washington given the odd corporate structure of MASN. If Baltimore firms end up rallying behind MASN, get used to the Baltimore-centric programming because that is likely what we will end up seeing on MASN for years to come.

Marc Fisher: Interesting point--so you think D.C. advertisers might spurn MASN because paying Angelos supports the O's bottom line far more than the Nats'? I don't think there's quite that much community spirit behind decisions about where to spend ad dollars, but I do agree that DC advertisers will think twice about spending their money on a channel that is so heavily Baltimore-oriented in its programming. That would seem to many businesses like wasting money on reaching an audience that isn't where your shop is.

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Arlington, Va.: Marc:

Given your constant whining and complaining about teenage drivers, I thought I would provide a rural perspective courtesy of my being raised in a farming community.

I had classmates who were driving tractors costing $100K years before they got their license at 16. The tractors were pulling off-sets (discs)or chisels or planters easily costing $10K or more. Come harvest, they might be pulling a grain cart worth $40K...or driving a grain truck to the elevator worth that same amount. Come high school, some of my classmates were driving combines worth $250K-plus. One of my classmates worked on a custom harvesting crew working 16-plus hours doing this and made over $15K that summer. Not bad for a high school kid making $5 an hour.

My point you seem to not understand: Much responsibility was given at a much earlier age than kids around here. While you can't compare the level of traffic in a small town to a big city, one can compare the responsibility given to a child at seventh, eighth and ninth grades as opposed to around here.

Your narrow-minded view may play in this area but go out to the real world and watch people laugh at you.

Marc Fisher: I have no objection to carving out exceptions for farm kids to drive tractors, combines or anything else in service of helping out their family. And I have no doubt that even little kids can be trained to handle those machines. But I still argue --and you seem to concede-- that there's a big difference between those activities and handling the wild and wily ways of revved-up, traffic-frustrated commuters in a big city or out on suburban highways--and I don't see any evidence, in accident surveys or in insurance company data, that contradicts the idea that teenagers really don't have the ability to concentrate on the road or restrain themselves that's required to keep the roads safe for all of us.

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Southern Maryland: I am so sick and tired of The Post's snarky remarks about Republicans. In the article today reporting on O'Malley's inauguration, the reporter took two shots at Kendel Ehrlich. One sentence said "her mouth pressed together in a frown." The other remark criticized the color of her coat. It was fuchsia. Mrs. O'Malley's was a "subdued navy blue." Now if it were reversed I'm sure the reporter would have said "Mrs. O'Malley sparkled in a fuchsia coat, and Mrs. Ehrlich looked positively funereal in navy blue." Get off it. Democrats are such sore losers and they are rubbing our noses in a Republican loss. You don't see Republicans making snarky cracks about Democrats. We're more dignified than that.

Marc Fisher: How is it a shot to observe that the outgoing First Lady is frowning? Would you expect her to be overjoyed by the moment when her family is slapped in the face with the reality of Gov. Ehrlich's defeat? And I'm sorry, but the color of a coat is the color of a coat. As a former Style writer, I know snarky when I see it, and I freely admit that we sometimes rev up the snark engine a bit much, but this ain't it.

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Anonymous Maryland Information Center: Marc, I work at one of the smaller Maryland Information Centers. A week ago we got our first shipment of the 2007-2008 State maps, with a picture of Gov. Ehrlich and his family. Since he is no longer Governor, they all have to be thrown out. They would ordinarily not even be recycled, because my county does not have recycling, but my son and daughter-in-law drove up in their pick-up truck and took them back to Silver Spring to recycle them there, along with every other brochure that refers to Gov. Ehrlich, including the 2007 Maryland Calendar and Discover Maryland magazine (which is 200-plus pages long), even if that reference is only a single small line at the end of a brochure.

This happens whenever there is a new governor, even when the governor cannot possibly be re-elected, e.g., when Gov. Glendening was term limited. But we had to reprint brochures when he divorced his wife and remarried, and then when they had a child.

Your tax dollars at work. I think it's nuts.

Marc Fisher: It is indeed nuts.

Hey, did you happen to save any of those '07 Ehrlich maps? I'd love to have one, and maybe post one on the blog. If you do have it, please send it along to me at the Post, 1150 15th St. NW, DC 20071.

But you're totally right about the enormous waste of money that goes into cleansing the public buildings and documents of the loser's name--check out the highway signs and how quickly they are changed to note the new governor's moniker. Ugh.

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Leesburg, Va.: Hargrove is an idiot.

I am northern-born, and of French Canadian descent, so neither I nor my ancestors participated in slavery, conquest, or the forced relocations of any people in this republic. But I feel guilt, shame, and sorrow anyway for being a beneficiary of the results of our "manifest destiny." I am an unwilling beneficiary, perhaps, but not an unwitting one.

Hargrove owes an apology to all his fellow citizens. While he may be a citizen-legislator, his responsibility, as a citizen alone, requires that he have some sense of history about our bloody role in it.

Marc Fisher: Well, let's not go overboard. An apology or at least a more rigorous confrontation with the past can be healthful for a society, and surely we are still far from the day when there is no discrimination by race in this land. But I don't get why you would feel personal guilt or shame. As you say, neither you nor your ancestors had any role in slavery. As essential as it is to confront history as a society, when you personalize it like that, you saddle the new generation with a burden that hinders its ability to create relationships on its own. (I wrote a book about this: "After the Wall: Germany, the Germans and the Burdens of History," from which I learned how deeply many young Germans resent being required to take on the role of making up for what the Nazis did. It's right and necessary that they be taught what happened and understand why it happened, but when you go too far with that, you create a dangerous reaction in the wrong direction.)

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Rockville, Md.: If whites apologize for slavery and segregation, should blacks apologize for turning many urban areas into crime-ridden hell-holes and their high illegitimate birth rate that strains the social services system and perpetuates social pathologies?

These may seem like an off-the-wall analogies, but in both slavery and Jim Crow the number of direct actors was very small compared to the overall white population, and any broad responsibility stems principally from not thinking the issue was severe enough to do anything about for a long time.

We now think it a strong form of racism to tarnish African Americans, as a group, for crime and illegitimacy, correctly observing that it's wrong to paint innocent parties with the sins of others. But the fact that life- and society-damaging pathologies are insufficiently condemned within the black community is part of the reason they continue to such an extent.

Marc Fisher: Well, I think you're mixing up the legacies of the past and the dysfunctions of the present in too broad a manner. Surely the continuing struggles in black America are related to the legacy of slavery and the generations of discrimination that have followed. But the dysfunction and crime you talk about are not primarily aimed at others, but take place mainly within largely segregated and separate black communities. An apology makes no sense there, but there are huge numbers of blacks who make the argument that they must confront the problems in their own community rather than blame white America.

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Washington, D.C.: Marc, can you explain the fascination with Art Buchwald? I don't mean to be insensitive, but I don't get it. I grew up in this area and would read his column from time to time -- and quite frankly -- his column weren't especially funny or insightful. And I found his dispatches from his deathbed seriously morbid and equally uninspiring. Can you explain it?

Marc Fisher: I agree that his humor columns weren't funny over the past couple of decades. But I recall thinking they were really sharp and witty when I was a kid reading them in the New York Post, and if you go back and read his stuff from Paris or his early Washington columns, there is a freshness and a creativity to them that stood out for that time.

And as much as his later work seemed to be stuck in the humor of another era, I found his columns from the hospice to be really splendid--an unusually frank, open, refreshing and honest confrontation with the social expectations and the ridiculous niceties that surround death.

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Rockville, Md.: Does Washington, D.C. not get it? He said "and meant to indicate that he thought Jews obviously should not apologize for killing Jesus". The problem with this statement is two-fold.

First, we didn't kill Jesus. It was the Romans. To make a statement that obviously somebody not responsible shouldn't apologize would be more akin to "the Russians shouldn't apologize for Pearl Harbor" since the Russians weren't involved and everybody knows that. There are many in this world that think the Jews did kill Jesus.

Second, the fact that many believe the Jews did kill Jesus has been the basis for hatred and violence against Jews for years. By saying it (even if meant as "they didn't do it"), reinforces the belief in those that believe it.

Marc Fisher: Hargrove was asked about that and noted that his son-in-law is Jewish. I don't think you can conclude from his comments that Hargrove is anti-Semitic, but only that, as with his attitudes on race, he is, as several posters here have said, a product of his times. I don't think he really thinks through a lot of these issues, but that doesn't mean he can't: His switcheroo on the death penalty displayed a willingness to move beyond absolutism that I found impressive.

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APOLOGY: This issue of apologies reminds me of the Jim Mora "Playoffs" sound byte. If you know this sound byte then you will understand the comparison.

As a black man, why do we need an apology? An apology is a slap in the face. Why are our leaders even contemplating an apology? For what? What does it change? What does it accomplish? This is America. Show me programs and funding as a result and then we are talking. But an apology...come on. Every person in this world has apologized for something and turned right back around and did the very same thing again to the person they just finished apologizing to.

Get real people...

Marc Fisher: There are apologies that mean something and apologies that are as empty as my growling stomach. As in anyone's love life, going through the motions is a world apart from making things right with someone.

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Washington, D.C.: The apology isn't about slave owners saying their sorry, it's about the Commonwealth of Virginia recognizing a past injustice of staggering scale and offering a symbolic token. The U.S. did the same thing with Japanese internment -- we didn't ask camp guards or Administration officials to individually apologize for their role. That wasn't the point.

These people "can't understand" the point of the apology. I bet these are the same folks who get so upset over flag burning and other perceived injustices to symbols of our collective identity as Americans/Virginians/etc.

Marc Fisher: Right--the crucial distinction is between the collective, societal statement and any sense of individual guilt. That's why it saddens me to see kids in schools these days being pressured by teachers to express individual guilt over matters of race, sexuality, and other such politically difficult issues; teach the history, and examine the way morals and values evolve over time, and those kids will come out with a much healthier sense of what's right than if they are forced to make pronouncements about individual guilt.

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Arlington, Va.: I think we need to not put so much emphasis on people like Del. Hargrove, who sounds more like he just didn't choose his words carefully but has good intentions (many of us who do that, right?) and worry about politicos who are doing real damage, like Del. Robert Marshall of Manassas. He has gotten the anti-gay marriage bill supported, and now has bills regarding not allowing unmarried women to have in vitro fertilization (although no mention of prohibiting men from being sperm donors) and now trying to get women's health care providers (not just so-called abortion clinics) to comply with outrageous regulations so they get shut down. Oh, and the trigger law so that if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned by the Supreme Court, Virginia automatically outlaws all abortions. That kind of politico, my friends, is someone to worry about. Not someone who botches their speech.

Marc Fisher: To be sure, Bob Marshall is a far more important figure in the House of Delegates than Frank Hargrove, but it's also worth noting that when Marshall speaks, there's a fair amount of eye-rolling that goes on on the floor of the House. Marshall is a very smart guy, but his social agenda is so far out there that even members of his own party sometimes cringe when he's speaking.

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Washington, D.C.: I'm hoping this doesn't come across as rude, but you seem to be a person who knows his own mind. Many people write in arguing with a particular point you make. Have you ever read an argument here that has made you rethink your position?

Marc Fisher: Many, many times. That's what's fun about this here show and the blog and the column--we push back at each other and ideas, notions, perceptions really do change.

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Silver Spring, Md.: You think the Ehrlich map thing is wasteful? Back in the day of Willie Don the Maryland AIDS administration printed a bunch of posters about safe sex and condoms. As was the custom, WDs name was on them, in small print.

He or his office insisted on every one being destroyed, because he didn't want his name associated with condoms.

THAT's real waste. Willie Don the comptroller would never have tolerated it.

Marc Fisher: Wow. Great story.

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"The half-done road project near my house: is virtually dormant." you said back in your Yo Adrian article (Dec 31).

So what IS the deal with Reno Road?

Marc Fisher: There does seem to be some very, very slow progress, but obviously the job isn't going to come close to meeting its original deadline, and the larger question has to be why was this contract let in the first place? There are plenty of streets in the city--and even in that immediate neighborhood--that were and are in vastly worse shape, yet the city decides to reconstruct a street that was in relatively decent condition. Bizarre.

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Washington, D.C.: Have you been following the story about how the D.C. govt now has to pay $1.5M to some lawyer who built a house overlooking R.C. Park and it's in someone's back yard? I don't know who the worse offender here is, the arrogant lawyer or the incompetent D.C. govt. The ones I feel for are the neighbors.

Marc Fisher: You feel for the neighbors? But they got just what they wanted! They got the house torn down and they got their legal fees reimbursed by John Q. Taxpayer!

I've searched and I can't find a sympathetic side to this one.

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New to the area: What is "RoVa" short for?

Marc Fisher: Rest Of Virginia, as opposed to Northern Virginia (NoVa). It's a fairly recent coinage, popularized in a controversial humor piece in the Post's Style section. Lots of folks out there think the humor piece was unduly snide and derisive of people in the rest of Virginia, but I thought it was funny and I've been amazed by how quickly the term has worked its way into semi-casual use.

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Arlington, Va.: Marc,

I just wanted to apologize to all the bad performers on "American Idol" the last two nights that I laughed at because they were so bad. People need to chill out. Let Hargrove say what he wants. If you don't like, don't vote him into office. Whatever happened to people speaking their mind? So what if he hurts someone's feelings. Get over it and move on.

Marc Fisher: More than that, as I argue in today's column, it's beneficial to the debate to hear someone like Hargrove say exactly what's in their heart--it may even move some legislators in the opposite direction. I'd always prefer hearing the unvarnished truth to hearing premasticated, homogenized, politically correct babble.

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Washington, D.C.: So we get people up in arms over crazy old men in leadership positions in our government, but then other people become enraged when the Nats don't offer a position to Frank Robinson? I know it's not exactly the same, but my idiot co-workers keep thinking the Nats dropped the ball with him. And I'm not making any friends when I tell people that he should have been fired after the first season. Sigh. Anyway, thanks for letting me rant.

Marc Fisher: Interesting analogy. I'm also mystified by the groundswell of sympathy for Robinson. He's a great and historic figure in baseball, but he was a lousy manager, and fans were far from alone in that view: Players voted him the worst manager in the sport in a Sports Illustrated poll. The Nationals messed up by leading him to believe that they would have a meaningful job for him, but they were right to let him go.

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Gainesville, Va.: Okay, so how serious is this "Redskins Back to D.C." business, really? Seems to me it's a media-created frenzy at this point.

Marc Fisher: Not media-created in the least; to the contrary, it was like pulling teeth to get any information about the talks that have been going on. It's not by any means clear that this will amount to anything, but there have indeed been conversations between the Redskins ownership and the District government, and the incentive here is clear: The city would love to have the team back, and the team feels competitive pressure from Dallas, the Giants and others that are building huge new stadiums that will be as big or bigger than the Landover facility, and will have a new generation of amenities. And the NFL is offering low-interest loans to encourage such ventures. Finally, what's pushing both the team and the city is the dream of having the Super Bowl in Washington, which would happen if the new stadium had a retractable roof.

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Pittsburgh: Yesterday afternoon, your colleague Michael Dirda posted what may well have been the last media reference to Art Buchwald while he was still alive -- a charming trivium in response to my question re travel/mystery author David Dodge (who also lived in France for a few years in the 1950s). Little could either of us have imagined just how soon Buchwald would die. Anyhow, here's Dirda's reply, in relevant part:

Michael Dirda: I read Dodge's novel "To Catch a Thief" -set on the French Riviera] because I had so loved the movie... Do you realize that at the beginning of the film of "To Catch a Thief," there's a shot of an account of the cat burglar's activities in the Paris Herald Tribune. The author? Art Buchwald.

Marc Fisher: Yes! His Paris stuff is a joy to read, and it's been collected in a couple of books, which you should grab off the library shelves now, before they vanish for the foreseeable future.

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Arlington, Va.: Marc - stop using RoVa! It is a stupid comment.

Go visit Charlottesville and the University of Virginia and I assure you that you will not find many differences culturally between there and Northern Virginia. In fact, as a native Northern Virginian, I found that area much more liberal and "granola" than my suburban upbringing (meant as a compliment of the area and not an insult.)

Plus I am 100 percent positive you will find little in common between those living in say Norfolk and those living in Galax, Va.

Marc Fisher: Sure, NoVa/RoVa is an overly broad construction, but that's the nature of such shorthand. There are some obvious pockets dotted all around Virginia that have much more in common with Arlington and Fairfax than with Frank Hargrove's Virginia--Charlottesville, Roanoke, any number of college towns, Abingdon.

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From Manassas, Va.: You say people roll their eyes at Bob Marshall's agenda? Well, that marriage bill got passed, didn't it? So much for eye rolling. I don't know why people here vote for the guy and I'm almost ashamed to admit that someone like him represents my area. Manassas is such a growing area with a diverse population and income levels yet he makes it look like all of us are a bunch of hicks and think the way he thinks. Not enough people get out to vote obviously.

Marc Fisher: Sure, Virginia is still a socially conservative state, but it's also a divided state on such issues. For example, just yesterday, this happened:

(from news reports:) A divided House of Delegates committee blocked legislation Wednesday that would require parents to provide written permission for students to participate in extracurricular school activities. ¿House Bill 1727 was opposed by representatives of gay-straight student groups, who viewed it as an attempt to discourage participation in such organizations.

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Berryville: I graduated from Providence College in 1970. Our administration had shut down the college after Kent State, so that we could all come to Washington in protest, so that gives you an idea of our collective mood.

That year, Art Buchwald was the commencement speaker. We thought that his appearance would be frivolous and entirely misplaced. But Art gave the most wondrously timely, engaging, warm and witty speech to the graduating class. He truly was a man of character and heart.

Marc Fisher: He had a terrific way of finding the right moment to be funny and the right time to be serious.

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Cap Hill:"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned today of a 'fiscal crisis' in coming years if the government does not act soon to curb federal retirement and health care entitlement programs"

What about ending an expensive war of choice that probably could have paid for the whole thing?

Marc Fisher: Or what about changing the structure of a health system that doesn't especially work all that well for most people and wastes money in colossal fashion? Or what about preparing for the next energy crisis before it happens? There are lots of things that could be done if the political imperative in the country were anything but avoiding confrontation with reality. I got two unrelated emails this morning from readers who argued that we are wildly overtaxed in this country; the fact that people can really believe that is a testament to the success of a political system that lives off peddling fantasies about getting something for nothing.

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Rockville, Md.: Hiya Marc

Regarding gubernatorial changes requiring changes to brochures, etc. When Christie Todd Whitman was elected governor of New Jersey, she refused to have signs made announcing that she was governor. You know, the ones that are normally attached to the "Welcome to NJ" (or Maryland, or wherever). These small savings, on items that really aren't that important, do much to raise the morale of citizenry and to signal that the leader is serious about fiscal responsibility. We could use more of that everywhere. Thanks for doing these chats!

Marc Fisher: Thanks--yes, you'd think that in this advertising-saturated society with mounting cynicism about promotional messages surrounding us, that some pol would win votes by announcing that he would spurn such silliness as the highway signs and the governor's face on all the maps. I'm glad to hear that Whitman did that; she was such an anomaly in politics--a mature adult.

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Is Charlottesville part of RoVa: Among Charlottesville's representatives in the House have been one George Allen and one Virgil Goode. Just sayin'.

Marc Fisher: Takes all kinds.

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Washington, D.C.:

Re: RoVA

When speaking about a country's international trade and foreign exchange, etc., economists often talk about a particular country and the RoW (rest of the world).

Marc Fisher: Now we're getting at the roots....Thank you!

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Washington, D.C.: Yeah, I grew up in the farming community with the $100k combines, too. The 15 year old kids driving them did so with fathers and uncles on the next field over, never without some sort of supervision. And then when those kids turned 16 and 17, they took the pickup out with their friends, got drunk on Milwaukee's Best, crashed the truck and killed themselves.

What kids do under the supervision of their parents is no indicator of how they'll act with a carful of their friends.

Marc Fisher: Sounds right to me.

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RE: Snarky comments:"You don't see Republicans making snarky cracks about Democrats. We're more dignified than that."

Obviously this poster has never listened to Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Kristol, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingrahm, Glen Beck, etc. There's a rather long list of Repubs who make snarky cracks about Democrats.

Marc Fisher: Snark knows neither color nor party affiliation.

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Re: apologies: My grandfather came over from Ireland about 80 years ago. He suffered discrimination while in the workforce and the government changed our last name upon his arrival.

I believe the state of New York, and the United States owe me an apology for removing the "O" from our last name.

Oh, and they also owe me restitution.

Marc Fisher: Well, no, but don't you draw some satisfaction from seeing latter day exhibits at Ellis Island that spell out how the customs examiners went about changing immigrants' names? Isn't it somehow a relief to see our society examining how and why those things happened? That's the spirit in which an apology can be helpful.

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Silver Spring, Md.: I really could care less if Virginia "apologizes" for slavery.

It is one of those "feel good" exercises that drives me crazy. And I am a black man who can trace his family all the way back to Thomas Jefferson's plantation. The slave owner who raped my great-grandmother is NOT around to say sorry...

Full of sound and fury signifying very little. Just like most politics today.

Marc Fisher: Right--if that's how it's done. The mere words of the apology don't do much, but if they are part of a larger effort to study the history and explain it to young and new Americans, then it has all kinds of promise. The reconciliation and historical examination processes that came about in South Africa and Germany and some other places after the revolutions of 1989 were sometimes pedantic and punitive, but sometimes they were immensely valuable in showing that societies can change for the better.

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Arlington, Va.: I think the saddest part of all this apology issue and the reaction to it is that it shows the nation is not yet ready for a frank or meaningful discussion on racial issues. Any statement by a person of one race about other or all races is too often immediately and simplistically labeled "racist." As a result, mostly heat and little light is generated and progress on racial issues is stalled. How can we as a society move ahead?

Marc Fisher: Far be it from me to be the optimist around here, but I think if you look at today's chat--and I purposely posted the least temperate comments along with the more thoughtful ones--you'll see very few people hurling around accusations of racism. Rather, the conversation has been on a pretty high plane, and that strikes me as a sign that these issues do not have to be handled with sensationalism.

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Woodbridge, Va.: So, Monica Lewinsky is looking for work in London. Why does this woman even have a publicist? Isn't she trying to stay out of the public eye?

Marc Fisher: Wait--you mean you don't have a publicist? I mean, doesn't everyone?

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Marc Fisher: Gotta run--thanks for coming along. Back with you in the paper on Sunday and online every day.

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