1 So who's Tony Pierce that I should care?

2 Sounds like Tony is pimping for Howard the Coward Dean.

3 Let me fill you in. Tony Pierce is another Leftist a-hole misrepresenting the facts. Unlike US 'journalists', Iraqi journalists can be bribed to tell the truth.

4 Sorry, DC. I just thought it was such a hilarious idea--and exactly 180 degrees away from reality. (After all, the bloggers who've gotten busted for non-disclosure of income streams that led to possible conflicts-of-interest were all on the left.)

5 I meant that as a tweak at him.

6 My challenge to the LEFT. Make one intelligent point that communicates your stance without criticiizing someone else. Just simply state one simple statement that states what you are about and fighting for without criticizing someone else. Atilla, why don't you post this as a blog?

7 I'm often taken aback at the moral dimension lefties usually bring to political discussion, and in fact to every aspect of life. I assume the chain of connections is thus: They are convinced of their own innate decency and ethical purity. Their way of thinking is not only self evidently correct but is an outgrowth of that decency and ethical purity. Therefore it is not possible for a decent person of ethical purity to disagree with their ideas. Disagreement with an ideas is therefore an attack on the person's decency and ethical purity, and is ipso facto evidence of a complete lack of either. Now I have no idea where this kind of arrogance and intolerance springs from. But it enables decent persons of tolerance and diversity to key cars with W stickers, to vandalize property with Bush signs, to engage in forgery and slander and election fraud with a clear conscience. It also is why I will not discuss politics with anyone who opposes my viewpoint because it all too often degenrates into a string of ad hominem attacks on my stupidity, greed, and bad character.

8 I'm lucky, of course: 1) a lot of my friends, though lefties, have known me since I was myself a raging socialist. So they (reluctantly) concede that I'm whip-smart (though colorful and deluded). And: 2) there have always been a few stubborn libertarian types in my crowd. It just happens that I'm the one carrying on that tradition at the moment (the others having wimped out in one way or another--sorry, guys!).