Some writers love words and language more than others. At one end of this continuum are writers who use language much the way a carpenter uses tools, and don't think about the tools much (would a carpenter say he "loves" his hammer or saw?). At the other end of the scale are writers such as Geoffrey Nunberg, whose love of language is a core part of not just their writing, but their whole being. For instance, his impressive "day job" is researching linguistics at Berkeley's School of Information, meaning that even when he isn't writing, he is still thinking about language.

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When I wrote yesterday's column ("What, Exactly, Was Pelosi Supposed To Do?") I expected a certain amount of debate, but I had no idea what direction it would take (which is the whole fun of the blogosphere). To be perfectly honest, I thought some Pelosi defenders would take me to task for being too hard on her.

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Listening to the news over the past week, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that Nancy Pelosi was personally responsible for torturing prisoners. Because that's how the storyline seemed, if you had just beamed in from Mars and didn't know anything else about the debate on prisoner interrogation. The problem is, we have not just arrived on this planet, and Nancy Pelosi will ultimately wind up in the history books with a footnote (if that) in the description of what took place under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. But her critics in the past few days have remarkably failed to answer a very basic question (not that the media is really asking, but maybe they'll get around to it) -- what, exactly, was Nancy Pelosi supposed to do?

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I have to start by saying that in all honesty, President Obama and the Democrats didn't have a great week.

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America is approaching an important date for our military involvement in Iraq. By the end of next month, American combat forces are supposed to pull out of Iraqi cities. Little attention has been paid to this first withdrawal deadline in the American media, but as the date gets closer hopefully they'll realize what is about to happen. Because the next phase of America's military presence in Iraq could determine how fast President Obama can draw down the total number of American troops in the country.

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Frank Luntz is one of those Republicans that is both respected and feared by Democrats. And rightly so. Because Luntz is a master at the business of teaching Republicans how to speak. He gets paid a bundle of money for doing this sort of thing, unlike amateurs such as myself on the web. [Note to Democratic Party: I will cheerfully accept bundles of money for writing this column, just to let you know....]

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The intraparty struggle within the Democratic Party over what exactly to do with Arlen Specter now seems to have been worked out. For the time being, at least, Specter will not get to keep his overall seniority (which was apparently promised him by Majority Leader Harry Reid), but as a consolation prize will chair the Crime and Drugs Subcommittee, part of the Judiciary Committee he used to chair as a Republican. This struggle may wind up being re-fought after the 2010 election, but for the next year and a half the dust appears to have settled on the issue.

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President Barack Obama made an announcement last week just after Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced his impending retirement. In it, the president spoke of the qualities he is looking for in his first nominee to the highest bench in the land. He used the word "empathy" which, strangely enough, Republicans pounced on. They lost no time in denouncing "empathy" as a "code word" meaning Obama was about to appoint Michael Moore to the court. Or something. Their logic, at times, gets a wee bit confusing, I have to admit. But seriously, conservatives are gearing up for a confirmation battle (which they will lose), and this was the first pre-emptive strike in that battle. But in my own opinion, if Obama was speaking in "code" (which is debatable in the first place), I think everyone missed his point. Because by speaking of "empathy," I think Obama was doing nothing more than signaling he's about to put a woman on the Supreme Court.

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On a much more serious note, Mexico and the H1N1 flu virus are in the news. Actually, for the past week or so they've pretty much been the news. Ever since last week, the so-called "swine" flu didn't just hit the headlines, it pushed everything else aside. The mainstream media went predictably berserk over the whole story, as is their wont. Nightly news shows devoted over half of their coverage to the issue, even though the death count in the United States currently stands at one (more people probably got killed by lightning in the same time period, to say nothing of traffic accidents). But the media bravely didn't let facts get in the way of a good story (especially one guaranteed to scare the pants off just about everyone).

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OK, with that out of the way, we must (sadly) turn our eyes to the Republican Party. Because they appear to be losing all touch with reality, so it's best to keep an eye on them at this point. For starters, they are calling a special Republican National Committee meeting in the next month to vote on (as if they could) forcing their opposition to change their name to what is variously described as the "Socialist Democratic Party" or the "Democratic Socialist Party" (as well as variations where they intentionally leave out the "-ic" just to twist the knife).

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