Being dead, Mr. Bruce is not expected to reap any immediate benefit from the pardon.

Comment in article discussing how Gov. Pataki is giving the comedian a posthumous pardon for his obscenity conviction in the 1960s, which drove Lenny Bruce to self-destructive depths that led to his death from drugs soon afterwards. A fitting comment, but still a bit sharp for a NYT article. Attempts are ongoing to strength the forces of censorship that was his downfall. One step forward ... one step back?

Political Debate Can Be Sharp Even Among Friends: As I noted below, I think Dean's comment that we are not safer with Saddam in custody has a lot of merit as an overall sentiment, but is somewhat inartfully put, and opens him up to obvious criticism. The same can be (and was by I and others) about his Confederate sticker comment (he wants to gain the support of those with them on their pickup trucks). If he can ride the storm, more power to him, but wouldn't "just how much safer are we really?" have been better? His comment was a bit too absolute and even many supporters aren't sure if it really is true. Others feel such criticism is ill advised and simply wrong. See here for a back and forth on the matter.

[I know by now that "well, what I meant was ..." doesn't cut it. If your words requires too much analysis, especially if you say something as sharp as that, you lose your opponent as you try to explain. It is annoying to the degree that nuance is lost in the process, and when your opponent is willing to debate the details, you are impressed all the more for it. Dean, however, is not quite one for "nuance" ... his key strategy is the sharp hit; once he starts to have to nuance himself, his strengths drop some. He does have the ability to do it though -- see his support of the Biden-Lugar alternative to the Joint Resolution on Iraq -- so I'd hope he'd avoid comments like this as much as possible.]