The vast majority of people who read my cartoon live in places like Dayton and Austin and Athens and Des Moines and Missoula and Milwaukee and Buffalo and Savannah and Springfield, and while they may not believe that twenty-first century Americans are God's chosen people, and while they may find cause to disagree with Republican policies and priorities, I think they'd be very surprised to learn that they are anything but ordinary Americans.

But we are ordinary Americans. What's so surprising about the entire middle of the country being "ordinary"?

I like Doonesbury, even though he constantly needles the right. When the Left deserves it, he'll laugh at them too. I can't stand Tom Tomorrow because he doesn't needle or jab, he chops and beheads with every cartoon. Tom T is more to the left than even Jerry Fallwell is to the right.

No matter what defeatist tack liberals take, real Americans are behind our troops 100 percent, behind John Ashcroft 100 percent, behind locking up suspected terrorists 100 percent, behind surveillance of Arabs 100 percent.

Now here, of course, Ann is wrong. I'm certainly not behind Ashcroft 100%. The sweeping powers in the name of "security" that got pushed through and are getting pushed through (which pretty much include every item on the Justice Department's "wish list" that has previously been turned down time and time again) are scary.