Walsh's most recent column attacks MoveOn's recent ad about Petraeus betraying us. I made numerous closely reasoned arguments against that position. I also called the people who accept the contents of the MoveOn ad, while shrinking from the headline's use of the word "betray," "pussies".

I'm sorry if some of you don't like that language, but I DO think they are cowards, and I am calling them that substantive, aptly meaningful name.

I must have had 10-15 posts on that thread, many of which contained the allegedly offensive behavior, but she only cut 1 of those posts -- the very post that defended my use of the word -- while leaving all the other offending posts up. Maybe the rest of my posts are next to get the axe, but as it stands here at 2:07 PM, this is utterly indefensible censorship. If the rest of the posts can be there, then you can't defend the censorship of that one post in any principled way. It's a sheer intellectual power play.

I am a very frequent commenter here on Salon (200 letters). And I make substantive contributions to the discussion around here. You can click on the link below and read them.

They're tough but I think they clearly add to the discussion. I really don't appreciate being censored at all. I think it's quite lame.

I posted the following on another one of her letters threads as well:

"Wow, Joan. I can't believe you cut 1 of my posts in the "Profiles in Democratic Cowardice" letters thread and then closed down the discussion entirely. Especially since that 1 post that you cut is my explicit defense against your charges and on behalf of all my other posts in that thread. Other than my original post addressed to you, it was the most important thing I posted on that thread. And you censored it.

I am literally shocked."

Walsh herself says "I think maybe (maybe) you can toss that word around for effect every now and then".

So her problem boils down to the frequency with which I used a certain word. I don't think that's legitimate grounds for any kind of censorship and certainly not selective censorship.

"Censored for sexist language, maybe?"

I'm sure she'll appeal to that argument, since she has nothing else. But no argument can rescue her because she has selectively only censored one post, a post that as far as I remember never even calls anyone a "pussy" and only refers to the word in quotation marks! She herself used the word in quotation marks so there can't be anything wrong with that. I think the part she choked on was when I said, "I bow my head to no one."

I certainly didn't intend it in a sexist way. I didn't use it in a sexist way. I explicitly apply the term to ALL people who have a problem with the MoveOn ad.

Just for the record: I am a feminist. I am not a sexist and no one who knows me thinks I'm a sexist. I have known and worked both with and under too many highly intelligent, capable, and powerful women to be sexist.

"The word is inherently sexist, just as it would be racist behavior-- intended or not-- if you used some racial epithet to call lots of different people names."

I don't really buy that argument at all, Karen. A lot depends on context.

Even calling a person a "nigger" isn't inherently racist. For instance when one black person calls another one "nigger" in a friendly way, that is not racist.

But the word "pussy" is very different than "nigger". "Pussy" is even less inherently problematic. When a redneck calls a black guy "nigger" with hostile intent there is no doubt that the referent of the word "nigger" is a race or a specific member of a race and that the term is meant to be derogatory about its referent.

By contrast, when you call someone a "pussy" you are not referring to women. As used in the vernacular, it means "coward" or "wimp" and refers to people who are cowardly, irrespective of gender. So "nigger" inherently refers to a race, but "pussy" does not inherently refer to a gender.

Another example: you can call a guy a "dick" -- a word which is even more strictly tied to one gender than "pussy" and is based on a male body part -- but I don't think to do so is inherently anti-male. Despite the incidental fact that it has its origin in a male body part, use of the word "dick" is really pretty neutral in terms of one's views about men and women and their respective gender roles.

When I watch the scene in the movie, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, where Spicoli says to Mr. Hand, "You dick!" I don't get all upset and feel that my gender has been maligned.