Admittedly, the most noble form of truth being spoken to power involves speaking it to those who hold power directly over you. However, this is not the only way in which truth can be spoken to power. Oftentimes, truth is spoken to power from an outside source, on behalf of the disempowered who don't have an effective voice of their own.

The Iranian Presidency may not have as wide a reach as the American one, but Ahmadenijad still has a lot of power over the people of his country. Ultimately, he is an integral part of a theocratic political system that persecutes, censors, kills, and disempowers many of its own citizens, and he has chosen to perpetuate and support that system. This in contrast to his predecessor in that office, who actively sought to reform and liberalize the system. Given that, I would characterize Bollinger's decision to publicly pose these hard questions to Ahmadenijad in his presence (something that nobody else has had the courage to do) as an instance of truth being spoken to power.

There is no logic or reason in your responses to me. You do not refute any of my points with any facts or citations. Thus I have nothing to respond to, other than your ad-hominem attacks, which I will refrain from addressing.

And no, you didn't hit a sore spot. You actually made me laugh. What, exactly, did I have coming? Your accusation that I have no friends? You don't even know me, so what do I care about that?

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I didn't have time to respond last night. I was busy playing dodgeball with my nonexistant friends.

I disagree that the fact that he said these things to Ahmadenijad's face is unimportant. It is very important, in that it forces him to acknowledge these issues and respond to them. He can ignore the New York Times, but he could not ignore this.

He waited until Petraeus had his say, and then, it appears, delivered a controlled, reasoned, and line-by-line takedown of the man. What MoveOn did - callling him childish and silly names before he even had spoke, in an fairly blatant attempt to discredit the messenger - left them open to criticism from those who respect the military and don't want to see it or its generals slandered unnecessarily. Bacevich will not receive the same treatment that MoveOn did, not out of any establishment love or respect for The American Conservative, but because he respectably made his case in the form of a response, instead of an attack. I look forward to reading it.

All of the substance of the MoveOn ad matters not. It was that one word you refer to - that one word that childishly attacked him before he had even uttered a word - that is all that matters now. What, exactly, did it accomplish, other than to set the Democrats up to condemn MoveOn, thus creating a schism within the American left? Do you really think that it succeeded in "popping the baloon," as you put it? I don't, and I think that this result was, and is, entirely predictable.

If MoveOn had followed Bacevich's strategy - saving the bulk of their critique until after he had delivered his report, and thus addressing it to the substance of what he actually said - this area of conflict between MoveOn and the Democratic Party would not exist.

Your own final attack on my own character is noted and ignored.

...for me, anyway.

I am not interested in hope. Hope is for the disempowered. It was a perfectly appropriate theme for Bill Clinton's longshot 92 campaign against King George I in the heady post Gulf War I days. However, now that Democrats are more empowered than they have been in a generation, I can think of few things more limp and weak to invoke than hope. This time, I want action. The war; energy; global warming; restoration of the Constitution; health care - there is a lot riding on this election. I want someone to convince me that he - or she - will sieze this moment in history and DO something about all of it, because, unlike in 92, all of these issues are now almost completely within range of our grasp.

The disastrous Bush presidency - the apex of the conservative movement - has come and gone. The time for hope - hope that it could have been avoided - is over. Now its time for action.

That being said, the book about his father actually does sound pretty interesting. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it.

"Or is it that I'm frustrated that as mutually agreeable (if bizarre) as these arrangements seem, you can't really have it the opposite way? (Men, by virtue of often being physically stronger, and in possession of a penis, can abuse and dominate their female "escorts" in a way that these women likely can't.)"

By this logic, no mutually consensual interation is EVER possible between men and women. If you accept the "men are stronger" premise (which, in and of itself, is a very sweeping judgment), it applies universally, in all matters - not just sexual ones. According to this way of thinking, women are IN FACT inferior to men, and enslaved to them by nature.

PHYSICAL STRENGTH DOES NOT INVALIDATE THE LEGITIMACY OF MUTUAL AGREEMENT OR CONSENT BETWEEN PEOPLE!!! There are LOTS of other factors and power dynamics at play in situations like these. Assuming otherwise is as insulting to the parties involved, be they male or female, as it is wrongheaded and disempowering to women.

Don't project your own anxieties and prejudices onto everyone else in your gender. Happy hookers do, in fact, exist. Just because you wouldn't want to do it doesn't mean that nobody does.