Apparently Glenn thinks rotating individuals, groups, and his tires, are all the same.

Your choice of metaphor is telling. We aren't talking about machines, but human beings who have been subjected to extreme stress for prolonged periods and have time and again been denied adequate time to rest and recover from that. Small wonder the rate of suicides among military personnel are so high.

That it is taking actually legislation to force the Administration to do so speaks more of them than either Senator Webb or Congress.

When you can tell the difference between real, live human beings and the 16-bit characters on your video screen, then talk about this. Until then, or until you actually grow a set and sign up, do spare us your shite.

You don't ever hear of anyone claiming that only cops and firefighters get to have or take a position on crime and firefighting. One would think with the logic here that only cops and firefighters could do that. And only poor people could speak for the poor or nurses for the ER or Native Americans for them.

I hope you all will remember that and not leave yourselves open to this kind of intellectual dishonesty. In other words, when there's a policy issue about liberal left coast bloggers, THEN you can chime in. thank you.

Right. It's only coincidence that the first picture ever used on your column was a pudgy right winger about whom you said...

As usual, Shooter is an absolute liar. I have posted photographs many, many times when the post focuses on one person.

I posted a photograph of Mike O'Hanlon with the post I wrote about his Op-Ed.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/30/brookings/

I posted a photograph of Mike Allen with the post I wrote about his journalism.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/02/mike_allen/

I posted photographs of Rush Limbaugh and Denny Hastert when I wrote about the latter's appearance on Rush's radio show.

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/mark-foley-and-unmasked-republican.html

I began doing this in response to reader suggestions that when a post focuses on one person, it is common and helpful to include a picture. It breaks up the text and allows a visual image to be conveyed of the subject of the post.

My reluctance to do so, as I said back then, was that liars like Shooter would come and claim that I was using their physical appearance as an argument against them. The consensus was that if I use their official photograph or a common online picture -- rather than one chosen to make them look bad -- that wouldn't happen.

So that's what I do. But it doesn't prevent outright liars like Shooter from claiming it anyway -- nor others in this comment section from claiming that I made their physical appearance a part of my argument even though I did no such thing.

Glenn gets defensive about being called, on critcising how people look. Tsk.

Great letter, and it's precisely why my daughter has such a field day with Greenwald. He's so transparent--without, of course, realizing it.

He also has way too high an opinion of himself mixed with a sneering condescension towards anyone he doesn't like or disagrees with.

Classic stuff, this.

Michael B. English:

Doesn't the military already keep track of this sort of thing?

I'm about 99.9 % sure that the US military already knows exactly how long any given soldier has spent inside a combat zone as opposed to on leave.

In fact, I would guess that the US military has been compiling this information on each and every one of its soldiers since World War ONE. It is simply a basic part of the information a modern army needs to perform its duties.

Yeah, right! Competence. Whatever.

Sure, that's how things certainly must have been done back in the 20th Century. But for BushCo, it would mean that they would have to go back to doing things the way Clinton did them. The mere fact that things had been done that way by every President in living memory would not make it one bit less of a bitter pill for them to swallow.

Gee, DCLaw1, why didn't you post this article from the Washington Post?

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/09/live_from_the_mall_why_huge_cr.html?hpid=topnews

Probably because it shows the anti-war protesters to be the disorganized, unrepresentative loons that they are.

Glenn - I didn't make a single comment about their physical appearance. If the words "fat faces" popped into your head as part of the argument, blame yourself, not met. I used their official photographs from the AEI and Washington Post website.

Right. It's only coincidence that the first picture ever used on your column was a pudgy right winger about whom you said...

"Another picture is here. As has been noted many times before, those who have a never-ending need publicly to call into question the masculinity of others in order to make political points -- whether it be James Taranto, Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Reynolds -- are so frequently the precise antithesis of the virtues of traditional masculinity they accuse others of lacking. That this is so is neither surprising nor hard to decipher."

and directly mocked....

(5) Do you think that your physical appearance (see here) has anything to do with your need to mock publicly the masculinity of others?

And the second time you've posted a picture is ANOTHER pudgy righty, but expect noone to recall your previous slur? Tsk.

His physical appearance is not relevant to this argument, which is why only you -- but not me -- raised it.

LOL. Oh sure, that's why you took the trouble to post your second picture ever, in years of publication.

But his lack of service plainly is. There is something particularly inappropriate about someone who has never served in war and thus cannot fathom the strain it puts on people to be so dismissive of the need for extended breaks from multiple tours of duty. If he had been a war veteran, the argument would have been grounded in more than mere disdain.

Ah yes, no opinion about the military is valid without having been IN the military? I don't see any data about previous tour refreshments, no comparisons with other actions, just the "chickenhawk" slam. It doesn't get much lower than that.

Again, the "rhetoric" you are complaining about exists only in your head, which you're using to attribute to me thigngs I didn't say.

But you have evaluated Hemingway's worth by a photo and by using a photo here evoked the same criticism. These are after all the only two times you've used a picture and in the same vein of criticism. The commenter's inference is not surprising while your protestation of non-implication is not believable.

Nonetheless, I have written many, many times before about the personality types who are warmongers and how the relationship between their personality attributes and their twisted policies. I will definitely continue to do so. -- GlennGreenwald

Then I suggest you confine your criticisms to what they write, not how they look.