I read my own post and disagreed with part of its slant. All junior grade officers were not jerks. A couple were sane, and treated their men (almost all of us were then, back in the draft days). And those LTs and JGs that served on patrol boats in Nam had some of the highest casualty rates of the war. Props to them, and their brothers. I don't want to make the mistake of tarring an entire strata with the same brush. But my overall point was, and is, that enlisted men (and women) work while the junior officers nit pick about shoe shines and haircuts. Anchors aweigh. RM3 Tom

when they start characterizing Obama as some kind of secret saracen. This sicko spectacle can only make me desire change all the more vigorously.

As a Vietnam Navy veteran, RM3 in cryptographics, I can now understand your mindset, bohica. We enlisted men, who do the work, take the chances (and the casualties), often used part of leisure time- of which there wasn't a helluva lot- to mock LT and the rest of the puffed up officer cadre. I had a job at one time- not to give away national secrets, but this was 35 years ago, and I'm sure the technology has been superseded many times over- in which a certain secure circuit had to be reset every day within a fifteen minute window. This was ship to shore communication. If that period lapsed, the ship was to assume the station had been obliterated, and the vessel was to launch. Think nuclear sub here, with missiles to match. So, it was, to say the least, a task that required intense concentration. All the LTs ever did- because they didn't know a damned thing about it, except it was important- was to hover around making mindless critiques. Sounds like the MQ's for LT haven't changed. So, pardon me if this Vietnam vet doesn't salute your line of bilge, bohica. Anchors aweigh. love heywood

No, you've missed it again. I agree that you speculated. My posts to you were to the effect that your speculation doesn't make sense, at least to me. Care to address that?

You seem to be conflating some of my words with those of a previous poster with whom you were earlier communicating. My response was quite simple. You invited me to speculate so I speculated admitting I was speculating and you now accuse me of speculating. Do you think you have sohmehow cornered me here?

I would be amused it I weren't bored with you. I will not bother to reply to your any further in this particular thread.

It's nice having a civil conversation with someone on this board. I apologize if I misread you. It's only natural to get heated, but I strongly beleive (maybe I'm naive) that if you sit most people down in a room together, after they've exhausted themselves fighting about their politics, religion, etc, they'll end up showing each other pictures of their kids and shooting the shit.

I think from now on I'm going to ignore all articles pertaining either to Obama or Clinton (don't hold me to it) because it makes me crazy. It's like crack, battling trolls, crafting witty responses, etc. I'm spending most of my workday angry; I get enough of a blood pressure work-out reading the editorial page at my newspaper.

I wish I had checked out Mike Gravel (or had the time to do it.) By the time we had the primary down here in Georgia, it was too late.

...is in the YouTube.

I held my nose and watched it.

A month or so ago the "Senator Obama is a Muslim who hates the flag" email you reference landed in my inbox and I took the time to educate the person who chained it over about reality.

Not that believing in Islam should be a bar to the presidency. I'd vote for a qualified Muslim. Heck -- I'm really waiting for the opportunity to vote for an atheist, but I'm not holding my breath.

Re drugs:

I'd like to stop the whole pissing in the cup ritual.

I think most controlled substances should be treated like alcohol with the exception of the few that cause delayed trips. (An airline pilot having a LSD flashback while working is a scary thought.) An adult's use of these substances should not be considered illegal.

Our political leaders need to stop being such hypocrites and end the war on drugs, setting those hundreds of thousands of drug use/personal possession prisoners free. Guess I can dream.

I read your comment history and found this thought that I agree with completely:

"Most of ya'll know you'll vote for whoever wins the nomination."

Yes, I will vote in November for anyone except McCain, if only because I want us out of Iraq sooner rather than later.

Also -- it is a shame you didn't check Senator Mike Gravel out a little more after the quiz matched you up with him. He stopped the draft single handedly and is a true patriot. Plus he wants to end the war on drugs. Go figure.

PS -- In the Navy, lieutenant is abbreviated LT, not Lt. Lt is the abbreviation for the other services' O-1s and O-2s.

Oh, one more thing. Doesn't it seem a trifle desperate to conclude that someone as demonstrably intelligent as Obama is so ignorant of his own motivations that he can't see about himself what you can see about him? Frankly that seems to me a real stretch. It looks a lot more like seeing what you want to see than seeing what's there.

Well, judging the current candidates by how they stack up compared to Bush is setting the bar a might low don't you think? Any of the current candidates, except possibly Huckabee, would clear it with ease, but I expect a lot better of them or anyone else.

But as to your notion that the sexism some people on this thread perceive was unconscious, it frankly seems a bit odd. In the first place, this whole discussion (at least about the sexism issue) has been about a careful parsing of words, i.e. he used certain words like "periodically" and "feeling down" to commuunicate the message without seeming to. How can he be both unconscious of the import of his words and at the same time choose them so carefully? As I've said before, when your attempt to make sense of a person's words or actions gets that complicated, I suggest you find a simpler explanation - like this was not a sexist statement at all.

And what, assuming you're right which I very much doubt, is the practical effect of Obama's being an unconscious sexist? What does that even mean?