I keep a file in my desk drawer at work. I label it “P&D,” which stands for “Praise and Damnation.” I’ve carried my P&D folder — several of them, actually — with me for more than three decades.

They contain comments from readers who either (a) love the things I write or (b) hate them.

My latest P&D entry, though, is by far my all-time favorite. I’m not sure I’ll ever get a letter quite like the one I got from an Amarillo resident who took serious — and I mean serious — issue with an editorial we published on Wednesday.

The editorial called on the Haitian government to ensure it is accountable to nations that are pouring relief into Haiti to help the people ravaged by the killer earthquake. Here’s the link to the editorial.

http://www.amarillo.com/stories/012010/opi_opin1.shtml

But then I got this note. I can’t reprint it in its entirety here, because it is full of too many four-letter words. The writer calls me a “racist.” But he did say this: “Where have you been when for years Haiti has been the center of the worst child slavery exceeses in the Western Hemisphere? Where have you been in demanding that the former excess of over 400 years of racist oppression be address and reversed? Permit me to answer my own questions. You have been pandering to rank and silly commercial interests — local advertisers who prefer that you continue with your racist crap instead of standing up for the oppressed and helpless. I call your … newspaper ‘—hole journalism.’ It always stinks to high heaven.”

The letter has more of this kind of rhetoric. It is graphic in its personal loathing of yours truly.

To be honest, this letter set me back on my heels. It’s not that he is right, it’s that his criticism is so intensely personal.

And here’s the best part: This guy and I know each other and we had a nice relationship — right up until the moment this note dropped into my lap.

I’ll keep this letter at the front of my P&D file, at least for a while. Most of the criticism I get keeps me humble. This one, though, makes me sad.

Can it be that Texans have more in common with residents of Massachusetts than most of us here, in the Lone Star State, are willing to admit?

Bay Staters expressed their anger Tuesday at the federal government by electing Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate seat held for 47 years by the late Ted Kennedy, a liberal Democratic icon if ever one existed. It’s been reported for weeks now that Massachusetts hadn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. What hasn’t been reported, though, is that the Republican elected that year was Edward Brooke, an African-American moderate in the mold of, say, the late Nelson Rockefeller. Brown doesn’t appear to have any of the leanings that Sen. Brooke exhibited during his two terms in the Senate, except perhaps his pro-choice views on abortion.

Still, listening to Sen.-elect Brown’s victory statement Tuesday night was akin — almost — to listening to Texas Gov. Rick Perry throw down on the feds in the spring of 2009 when he declared that Texans might get angry enough to want to secede from the United States of America. Brown said he’s fed up and isn’t going to take it anymore, and that the voters in his state have affirmed him with their vote that sends him to Washington.

Thus, we see a bit of a Texas resemblance way up yonder in that Yankee bastion of Massachusetts.

Hey, wasn’t it Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama who declared in 2004 that we are the “United States of America”?

Anti-incumbent fervor? What fervor?

Governors, just like presidents, take more credit and get more blame than they deserve.

That’s especially true in Texas, which has a weak governor’s office. Yet the Republican gubernatorial debate showed Texans how Gov. Rick Perry sought to gather up all the credit for creating jobs and how his challengers, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Debra Medina, sought to blame him for all that has gone wrong.

The next debate — which should include Medina, who many Republicans see as a spoiler — needs to hone in on the realities of the office all three people are seeking. How does the next governor plan to act within his or her power to make things right? What specifically can the governor do — without legislative authority — to put people back to work?

My sense is that there isn’t anything the governor can do. So why does Perry keep touting his “record” as a job creator and a tax reducer? For that matter, why do his challengers keep pounding him for things over which he has next to zero authority or control?

Remember when Gov. Perry issued an executive order requiring middle school-age girls to receive a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer? The Legislature quite promptly overrode the governor’s order. So much for executive authority, correct?

Texas’ founders had this idea that the governor shouldn’t have too much power. The governor is empowered, however, to make appointments to boards and commissions. The first governor’s debate didn’t touch on any of that. Perhaps the second one will zero in on the type of people the governor will appoint to Texas regulatory agencies.

If so, then we actually might get some relevant discussion going.

Pantex was locked down this morning when some goose hunters showed up near what’s known as The Bomb Factory.

The world is witnessing the good and the bad of American political life in the wake of the Haiti earthquake tragedy.

The good? It is the bonding among politicians coming together to aid in the relief effort. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — one Democrat, one Republican — are taking the lead in a massive effort to spark international relief efforts. That’s what compassionate Americans do. They set aside their differences for the common good.

The bad? The idiotic comments of talk-radio gasbag Rush Limbaugh, who on Wednesday was making light of President Obama’s response to the earthquake and the catastrophic loss of life on the island nation. The tragedy, Daddy Dittohead said, is “tailor-made” for the president, suggesting that Obama’s response is designed solely to achieve political gain. So help me, this clown is incapable of demonstrating an ounce of on-air decency.

Talk about damning someone with faint praise …

Well, two of the least-surprising events of the new year hit the headlines Monday.

One is that Mark McGwire used steroids for a decade, including the year he and Sammy Sosa electrified the baseball world with their incredible home run contest. That was in 1998. McGwire finished the year with 70 HRs, while Sosa ended up second with 66. Both men broke the major league record of 61 set in 1961 by Roger Maris, who outdueled Mickey Mantle in another epic home run duel.

Almost everyone on the planet knew that McGwire used ‘roids, just as almost everyone knows Sosa used them, too. Sosa hasn’t yet come clean. McGwire’s admission Monday was heartfelt, teary — and is an attempt at redemption for the retired slugger, who wants desperately to get into the Hall of Fame.

Good luck on that one, Big Mac.

The other non-shocker?

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and darling of the right wing, is becoming a commentator for the Fox News Channel.

It was just a matter of time that Sarah Barracuda would end up on the “Fair and Balanced” Network, where she’ll blend in with the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee and Bill O’Reilly.

I’ll be interested to see if she’ll allow herself to be challenged by anyone who disagrees with her world view (such as it is) or whether she’ll just join the conservative echo chamber that Fox News has become.

But hey, in the interest of “fair and balanced” commentary, let it be said that MSNBC’s roster of lefty commentators — namely Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow — is just as guilty of mingling on-air only with those with whom they agree.

If the former half-term governor is willing to grow, then she needs to enter the rough and tumble world of honest political debate. It would be fun to see how she holds up when pushed, prodded and challenged. I don’t expect that to happen on Fox.

I’ve been struck by the rationale of those who think that Texas Tech did former head football coach Mike Leach wrong when it fired him.

All the brave talk I have been hearing from local Democrats about how they’re going to come storming back is just that: talk.

Looking at the ballot for this spring’s primary season presents a pretty gloomy outlook for Panhandle Democrats. In races involving Potter or Randall counties, I find a single name running for a contested seat: Abel Bosquez, Democratic candidate for House District 87, a seat that has been held since The Flood by a Republican. Bosquez is a political animal, namely as a one-time chairman of the Potter County Democratic Party. He is married to a Democratic justice of the peace, Nancy Bosquez.

I have to admit to being surprised that one longtime local Democratic officeholder, Potter County Commissioner Manny Perez, escaped getting a challenge this year. Perez seems to draw an opponent every election year, but not this time. Why is that a surprise? Perez didn’t acquit himself well with many Potter County leaders over his stubborn resistance to a tax increment reinvestment zone for downtown Amarillo. I thought the big-money interests in Potter County would have found someone to challenge the combative Perez in 2010.

But that’s what I get for thinking, I guess.

But given a chance to contest other races, the Democratic Party is a no-show in 2010 — at least in this part of the Lone Star State.

It’s a shame, given that a two-party system works better than a one-party system. A strong opposition party often keeps the party in power more accountable and less arrogant. It’s true no matter which party is in the driver’s seat.

And besides, the Democrats have a first-rate candidate near the top of the ballot; he is Bill White, the recently former mayor of Houston who switched his goal from the U.S. Senate seat he (and everyone else) thought would be vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison, to a run for governor. Make no mistake, he will mount a formidable effort against whomever the Republicans nominate in March.

That excitement obviously didn’t filter on down to the local level, at least not here, where the Republicans continue their vise-grip on the political infrastructure.