Hey, Joe. Nice to meet you. My name isn't really nota bene, but you'll just have to deal with that.
Here's a copy of a comment I'm submitting at Swampland, in response to this unbelievably obnoxious post. Earlier today, Joe posted this charming little entry. So I'm reproducing what I'm going to post there, in case it doesn't get past the comment moderators.
Welcome to the Internet, Joe. If reader feedback has not been exactly what you had hoped, well....perhaps you should just cover the celebrity gossip beat or something. Oops, wait, that's why Ana got hired.
Even though I disagree with this escalation, I am hoping that General Petraeus succeeds in calming down Baghdad.
Just who the hell do you think you are? That is an enormously offensive question. I thought you were supposed to be some sort of moderate--that's fairly incendiary rhetoric.
But since you asked--of course I want to see the United States prevail. I would love to see those long-overdue flowers thrown at American troops in the streets of Baghdad, Mosul, Basra. I'd love to be wrong about everything that I've been right about for the last five years. I'd gladly, cheerfully, enthusiastically eat as much crow as you can personally serve me, Joe, if they name "some grand square in Baghdad" after Bush. Why do you even ask such an asinine question? You already know the answer to that question.
But this isn't about what I want, or what you want, this is about what is, Joe. And it's been demonstrated repeatedly that Bush has gotten America in over its head in Mesopotamia. Politics is the art of the possible, and not one of President Bush's ever-shifting objectives has ever been possible.
And furthermore, just where do you get off saying this?--
and the left wing tendency to assume every U.S. military action abroad is criminal
Are you being honest here, Joe? Are we talking about a straw leftist? Because I sure don't know any "leftists" who believe that, but I do know that CNN has found 2-to-1 opposition to the war. If there are that many people who are "rooting" against their own country in time of war, then this country's in real trouble. Because really, Joe, there's only one word for somebody who "roots" against their country: traitor. Is that what you are saying, Joe? That the American left is full of traitors?
Come on, you brought it up, let's do this. Name a traitor, Joe. Name somebody who deserves the chair for providing aid and comfort to the enemy, whomever that is. Who's sinking ships with their loose lips? Point the finger. You're so smart, you're so high and mighty, name some names of people who you think should be prosecuted. And not bloggers, come on, no riffraff. Let's fry some bigger fish. Point the finger at somebody public, somebody who's got some sort of influence. A guy at an ANSWER rally with a Che Guevara T-shirt doesn't count, let's hear about somebody who actually matters.
If not, then maybe you should just apologize to the people you have twice today acknowledged are correct. It's a lot easier to rage against "illiberal leftists" and "reactionary progressives" than to have to agree with a--ugh--Democrat.
Anybody who reads my commenting knows that I'm holding back. If he'd said something this stupid on a public board I'd have just sworn at him, but I'm trying to be as....civil....as I can to someone who just implied I was fit to stand trial for my life.