The chemistry is a little different with club members. Several are dear friends. Numerous others are valued acquaintances with sparkling personalities. Under the lively leadership of Tom Camarella for the past half-year, the Democratic Club has grown into the vibrant group that the Vice Mayor Alan Corlin said a couple of years ago it should be. Mr. Camarella brings a satchel of kid-like energy to the Wednesday night meetings. Some of the club’s more shall we say mature members are reacting — favorably — by giving it back to him. Mr. Camarella runs a high-spirited, fast-paced meeting. Oldtimers who used to spend these hours catching up on missed sleep from 1950 can’t hide out anymore. They sit up straight, and they respond when Mr. C or his wife, the effervescent Ronnie Jayne, cracks a funny one. No one takes a bathroom break for fear of missing a crucial line. Still, for a journalist whose proclivities incline to the right more often than to the wrong, a Dem Club meeting is not quite home. Walking through the doors of the Rotunda Room sometimes seems a little weird. I feel as if I am the only person at a costume party without a costume. Wednesday night, a lady I have known many years groaned when I emerged from behind door No. 3. She always has been candid. At the outset of Mr. Rohde’s speech, he acknowledged the presence of his hometown client Ms. Davidson, a well-known Republican. In his characteristically adroit manner, he affixed a caveat to his introduction. Mr. Rohde asserted that the Bill of Rights is a safeguard for all citizens, regardless of political party. Technically, he was stating the self-evident. Nevertheless, it was a deftly executed touch. Artfully, the gesture bespoke Mr. Rohde’s classiness.

In unsatisfactory conclusion, Mr. Rohde is a lovely gentleman whose politics are baffling, and so are some his lawyerly equations. I long have been intrigued by learned attorneys who soberly represent known killers on the disingenuous grounds that every suspect is entitled to a defense. Mr. Rohde devoted the final portion of his speech to the alleged — yes, alleged — torture of captured terrorists. The validity of his condemnation of Bush Administration policies aside, I am saddened by a lawyer who equates the rights of captured terrorists with the rights of Americans. Such a person makes no allowance for time of war, which history has taught us is an exception. I am reminded of Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, suggesting the other day that he and his newspaper are neutral in the war. What wounded me Wednesday night as an American was that Mr. Rohde took the claims of torture by jailed terrorists as fact. He then wielded the web of spectacular charges as a baseball bat to strike the American military over the head in its confrontations with terrorists worldwide. Then I remembered where I was. Many liberals believe “war on terrorism” is a Republican fiction. They hate and fear Republicans more than they dislike terrorists.