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>'With unrealistic expectations of our ability to prolong life, with death as an unfamiliar and unnatural event, and without a realistic, tactile sense of how much a worn-out elderly patient is suffering, it's easy for patients and families to keep insisting on more tests, more medications, more procedures. >Doing something often feels better than doing nothing. Inaction feeds the sense of guilt-ridden ineptness family members already feel as they ask themselves, "Why can't I do more for this person I love so much?" >...At a certain stage of life, aggressive medical treatment can become sanctioned torture. When a case such as this comes along, nurses, physicians and therapists sometimes feel conflicted and immoral. We've committed ourselves to relieving suffering, not causing it. A retired nurse once wrote to me: "I am so glad I don't have to hurt old people any more." '

Palin is undermined by questions about her qualifications

Julian E. Zelizer, author of "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism," is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He points out that accusations of "soft on defense" are not new - they have existed since WW II. And he argues that they had very bad effects on US policies in the 1950s & 1960s.