This single act, for which she has expressed genuine remorse, did not occur in the course of her duties or responsibilities as a journalist. As a result, this isn't an issue in which The Miami Herald needs to become involved.

That is one of the unfortunate realities of being in a business where you put words on paper, then put them on a truck to be delivered hours later.

I think the idea of an ombudsman here is a good one. But that would have to come from a higher place than mine.

I want to confront ... acknowledge that there were some people interested in the guild. If what underlies that interest were concerns about policies that I had, then I wanted to talk about them.

The idea was that you had this kind of slow take-off pattern, that you could be the unknown, the Jimmy Carter, the Jimmy who in 1976 showed up in Iowa, carrying your own suitcases and do well there, and get a little money and go on to New Hampshire and do well there and get a little more money and you kind of go up the stairs.

In both cases, you have these islands of trouble surrounded by seas of prosperity. The only way for either city, I think, to be pulled out of its problems is to be able to tap into the energy around it.