I started out as a private and then went to sergeant before I became a Lt., and then went to cpt.

You'll understand me, as one former NCO to a former-NCO-turned-officer, with all the brotherly love I intend, when I say: Fucking traitor. :>

FWIW, one anecdote among many:

My former father-in-law was a ring-knocker, Master's from the Sorbonne, five percenter, but also very deeply principled. He all but resigned his commission when he was a major because his Bn Cdr kept him (out of petty jealousy and punitive BS) out at Yakima during a measly mini-deployment when his wife was suddenly admitted to the hospital with aggressive cancer and their two young daughters were alone in the house. It was just stupid.

The post commanders' wife eventually heard about this, urged her husband to act, and he sent a Huey out to get the major. The brigade CO talked him out of resigning, brought him up to Bde as S3, gave him a stellar OER -- but he never forgot, and turned down battalion command when he was selected for it.

As a logistics officer at the Pentagon, he also discovered that there was no way the force could logistically support our OPLAN for returning forces to Germany if the Soviets came over the Fulda Gap. He tried to fix this, wrote a rather detailed classified report that went nowhere, and sought permission ... denied ... to publish it in Military Review and see what the rest of the officer corps thought about it. After getting rejected, he spent nine months re-writing the same report from unclassified sources, published it in MilReview, and got the changes pushed through. Eventually, they selected him for a star, even though he hadn't punched any of his command tickets ... but he said, forget it, and retired. Last I heard, he was agitating for changes to Tricare.

As you know, there are guys like that out there. They get their beat-downs, they dig in and persevere, and sometimes, they come out on top. I have a tremendous amount of respect for them, and several of them have been a big influence on me.

It is my considered opinion that Obama is a world class hypocrite.

And no, I don't like Clinton and I despise the Republicans.

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? :>

Two words:

Ghost Writer.

I made a decent amount of cash doing this once, myself, for a public figure.

Which is not to say that any of them then use the time to double-down on their responsibilities ...

Hubby rarely knows when the cavalry rides to my rescue, unless you all make me laugh too loudly. At any rate he's fishin' for perch

Best not let him see Jebbie's mullet, then. :>

Thank you for your thoughtful addition to the discussion with cabdriver. My knowledge is that of someone with interests, concerns, some contacts and the ability to dig for the dirt. It will always benefit from that of someone like yourself who has firsthand knowledge and experience.

Thanks for your thanks. As it happens, you brought out a school of similarly-experienced folk today, which can only be a good thing.

You know, of course, that without a discerning mind like yours (bringing your own knowledge and curiosity to the party & doing all that digging), our experiences would be no more than isolated perch-filled ponds ...

Interesting article you linked to.

In fact, I don't think he was deflecting it all. I think he completely misses the point, which is irritating but maybe not that surprising. I'm going to see if I can't goad the good colonel into a renewed exchange, and I'll post or link to anything interesting that comes out of it.

Caio, dahlink ... :* !

See, now that was just evil.

... and if in addition to your legs you let your pits grow out too, the whole nail thing becomes completely moot. (These are the things I learned from my many years living in Seattle, anyway)

:>

(I'll gently back out of the Women's Room now ...)

N=1 - thanks for that. Additional resources:

Poynter institute: poynter.org

Committee for Concerned Journalists:

http://www.concernedjournalists.org/

CCJ was formerly a sister organization to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which runs journalism.org. They split (different directions, as I understand, not personalities or principles), with PEJ joining with Pew to focus on research, CCJ partnering with the (good) Columbia-Missouri journo school to focus more on training.

Poynter is older than all of them, does a little bit of everything.