One of my favorite aspects of this site is the back-and-forth nature instead of just adding a comment to thousands of others. 

The thing is, YOU are in control of which posts you respond to and how you respond. If you decide to get into a pissing match, don't complain when your leg gets wet. A responder is simply pissing into the wind until YOU decide to step in front of him. In THIS case, you threw chum into shark infested water when you started asking about service records and such. What sort of reasoned dialogue did you expect at that point?

There is a school of thought that any kind of response is better than being completely ignored. I've always considered comments to be an indicator of interest in the issue at hand. I know I post a LOT of stuff that seems to be of little interest to the general reading audience. Doesn't really matter because the occasional "thanks for posting this" is enough. "Meaningful feedback" is the exception rather than the rule, and thet's true anywhere comments are allowed.

There is also a distinction between discussing facts and discussin opinions. Your post was from the gut; the subject itself unquantifiable. At it's core was a message of hope, not truth. We hope Obama will do right by service people, but we don't know what will happen when push gets shoved. Ain't nothin' wrong with hopin' but the pieces are still being put on the chessboard - it's a little early to be judging results one way or the other.

Hell, man, you got CENK to post a comment! That, my friend, is an accomplishment few can lay claim to.

by MedfordTim on 01/04/2009 04:11:22 AM EST