First off, I love running this blog. Although it takes a lot of effort to maintain, Captain's Quarters has allowed me to interact with some terrific people throughout the political spectrum -- and I find that the regular readers of this blog are almost intimidating in their intelligence. Friends and family ask whether I'm preaching to the converts, but I have been challenged many times on my positions, which just makes me better at defending my positions or, as happens on occasions, rethink those positions entirely.

Some of you bypass the comments and e-mail me directly, which is fun to read. Lately, I have been receiving suggestions for posts, which is new for me. I do read each of them, even if I don't respond, so feel free to keep sending them to me. If you don't see a post, it's just because I either have decided to focus on another story or I just didn't get to it while it was timely -- but it doesn't mean I don't like getting your suggestions. Whether you send me e-mail directly or comment on one of my posts, I read all responses.

This leads me to why I felt compelled to write this particular post today. This morning, when I got up and checked my e-mail, I had received this message, with the subject line "Bush Is Toast":

Come November that twit pretending to be president will be out on his ass straight to hell. Have a nice trip asshole.

The writer identified themselves as 'Test Name' with the return e-mail addy of 'gwbisevil666' at a domain which I won't name. That's it; no debate, no evidence, not even an explanation of whether the final epithet was aimed at me or President Bush. I suspect that the writer wouldn't care either way.

At first, this amused me, and it still does, but on further reflection, I think it is perectly indicative of the campaign rhetoric from the Kerry camp (and Dean's too, for that matter) this election cycle. Rather than honestly debate issues, the Democrats have made it all about personality since last summer. For some on the left, all you need to do is hate George W. Bush to feel you've fully participated in the national discourse. It's one of the reasons I remain optimistic about November, because I think that this strategy, if it could be called that, has already worn thin with the centrists. Kerry may ride that campaign tone down to the high 30s in the polls.

I'm mulling over issuing a challenge to some of the intelligent Democrats who read this blog -- the kind of people whose blogs reflect intelligence and rational thought, even if we disagree -- on holding a series of debates on our blogs in order to lift the level of discourse. That would make for the kind of blogosphere where we aren't preaching to the choir, where we meet for rational debate and give the other side an opportunity to exchange ideas. Maybe that way we can even engage the "Bush Is Evil" wingnuts ... or at least we can keep getting hilarious e-mails from them.

If the debate idea intrigues you, drop me an e-mail or a comment on this post, and we'll set up a schedule and some ground rules.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry is