I get e-mail from a lot of people, some of it supportive, and some of it critical. I find that most of it is well-written and open for dialogue, even those who disagree with me. Every once in a while, however, I'll get a mouthbreather who thinks that tossing insults and a few F-bombs amounts to principled and intelligent debate. Normally, I don't comment or reply to these; I calculate it as one of the costs of having a higher profile and simply keep them for my own amusement.

However, I just received two from one particular mouthbreather that I simply have to share with CQ readers. Today's messages come from a Jeff Oliver, whose first e-mail came with the subject "rove":

no room for comments eh? no room for argument. how typical.

you're a yellow fucking coward.

Obviously, Jeff has some comprehension problems, because at the bottom of each post on my site, there's a hyperlink on the word "Comment". I don't have instructions on my site, but most people instinctively understand that clicking on that link will allow visitors to leave comments, once they've logged in through Typepad. At the very least, one can read the comments that have already been posted. Since the number "91" appears next to the word "Comment", most readers could guess that we have that many comments attached to the post.

But that's not really the funny part. Within moments of receiving that e-mail, I received a second e-mail from Jeff Oliver with the subject "my bad" indicating that he had figured it out, or someone explained how blogs work -- one or the other. I assumed that the e-mail would apologize for his insulting tone. Well ...

I'm a goof. You do have comments!

So why aren't you in Iraq you fucking yellow coward chickenhawk?

Jeff, Jeff, Jeff ... If the armed forces took mildly diabetic 38-year-olds, I would have enlisted on 9/11. Trust me, they didn't need me. However, since you've asked the question, when did you decide that America should be a military dictatorship? After all, what you're arguing is that only military people should have any voice over how and when America goes to war, and that everyone else should shut up. Small wonder, then, that you don't like CQ, since we support civilian control of the military through its elected representatives, and free civilian debate over all policy and means of implementation.

But Jeff, if you want to live in a military dictatorship, you should start looking around pretty quickly. They're a dying breed, thanks to Anglo-American efforts the past three or four years. Civilian democracies are the future, pal.

If you have any more questions, be sure to leave them in the comments section. That's the hyperlink that says ... "Comments", just to remind you.

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