any column of his, starting from that premise, can only go down.

damn jeralyn, i am envious! i only get to go to places like san francisco and new orleans. it's not fair i tell ya!

Why should we be concerned?  Well, suppose a group of foreign mercenaries  came here and were allowed to operate outside of the law.  Not being restrained by the rule of law they start acting like macho cowboys and start doing stupid things like shooting citizens.  What would you do?

As one of my relatives told me "I'd shoot 'em back."

See what Salon did....

By their back-of-the-envelope math, the percentage of the population (allegedly) engaged in criminal conduct in three neighborhoods, per government statistics, works out like this:

South Bronx, NY, NY:  about 1 %
Anacostia, Washington, DC (SE):  about 2%
Congress:  about 8%

Madrid is a great, great city.  Make sure to hit the Prado if you haven't been there before.

Occasionally he outdoes even himself, though. You gotta love him this morning:

As I've noted many times before, virtually every column David Brooks writes is grounded in one of two highly misleading tactics and, on special occasions, like today, are grounded in both. That's all there is to him. He just re-cycles these same two themes over and over in different forms.

The first tactic is merely the most commonplace conceit of the standard Beltway pundit: Brooks takes whatever opinions he happens to hold on a topic, and then -- without citing a single piece of evidence -- repeatedly asserts that "most Americans" hold this view, and then bases his entire "argument" on this premise. Thus, the only way for Democrats to have any hope of winning elections is to repudiate their radical, rabid Leftist base and instead follow Brooks' beliefs, because that is "centrism." This is actually a defining belief of the Beltway pundit, and it is as intellectually corrupt as an argument gets.

Go read Glenn's post to find out what Brooks' second highly misleading tactic is.

Interestingly, the article notes that:

Coming just days before Sunday's filing deadline, when candidates are expected to report how much money they've raised over the last three months, the departure suggests that Giuliani is less than happy with his most recent haul.

* * *

A former top fundraiser for California Gov. Pete Wilson - who is due to endorse Giuliani tomorrow in California - Dunsmore raised a hefty $17 million for Giuliani during the three months that ended July 1.

While considerably less than the top Democrats, that was more than any other Republican in that period and helped to establish Giuliani as the race's GOP front-runner.

So, if it wasn't the problem of not-raising-enough, then what was it?  Personality?  Hmmm:

Insiders declined to estimate how much money the former mayor would report, saying only that they remained confident that Giuliani will have the resources he needs to get his message out.

But they suggested that Dunsmore's departure was less about money and more about personality differences and strategic visions within the campaign.

Whom did she offend - Rudy, or The Princess Bride?