this has been an elaborate exercise in navel gazing.

As a navel-gazing exercise, I guess that?s very interesting, but as an editorial decision, I think it?s terribly irresponsible. It seems to be a rather calculated effort not to advance any discourse on the events of the day but merely to provoke.

[Mr. Woodward's apology was partly directed at his colleagues.] Obviously people here feel let down, ... it hasn't had the demoralizing effect that the Judy Miller debacle had at the Times.

[Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma] showed exceptional emotional versatility, working a crossword puzzle during the hearing and then choking back a sob during a prosaic statement about partisanship, ... It was the biggest Senate choke-up since Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, cried while opposing the nomination of the ambassador to the United Nations (John Bolton) - and Coburn has to get through three more days of hearings.

The universe of his own feelings keeps crowding everyone else's out. It is a constant struggle to see other people as people, rather than as denizens of a dimension one level below the one in which he's doomed to wander, imperially alone. That someone close to him might right now be awake in a different part of the city, feeling a pain every bit as real as his own . . . he can think it, but cannot seem to remember it. And is 'remember' even the right word for something for which you have zero empirical evidence? Postulate, maybe. Imagine. He sweeps the lens back toward the window, where the cat hasn't stirred. Her tail twitches. An idea threatens to form, but doesn't.

The purpose of this exercise, which was only a drill, was to address the federal government's response to a potential smallpox attack. While there's concern, we do not have any concern that a smallpox attack is imminent.