That it came from the Colonel (making the drunken stupor theory more likely...) or that it didn't -- which implies that someone spoofed his address, created this drivel and actually sent it to Glenn. Security hole in the .mil server, an 'inside' job, or ?? Bizarre is right.

strangely, the email exchange in update 3 makes me suspect more strongly that this is either:

1) genuine (but regretted)

2) a setup

good luck glenn in sorting it out.

He talks about “comic relief” and then attributes “real talent” to (LOL) Alan Colmes?

A description I would never expect to see used in the same sentence with reference to Hannity’s "human straw man”, unless in the context of comedy. But his unintended comedy line is not so surprising. He’s probably judging Colmes by the same authoritarian-tool talent metric that’s obviously served him so well in his career.

BTW, to those who think the email is a hoax or that a man in his position could not have had such “a thoughtless, hasty reaction” - -(Gustav Sunday, October 28, 2007 07:21 AM), Glenn has apparently addressed those concerns directly with the Colonel (see his updates). The Colonel has denied it. Unconvincingly IMO, in the context of the emails exchanged, so far. The plot thickens. Meanwhile, consider this re the Colonel’s MO:

When the number of American deaths in Iraq reached 2000 on Tuesday, Oct 25th, 2005 and the American people (reluctantly followed by the MSM) were beginning to take note of the significance; this was the Colonel’s immediate reaction:

"It (the 2000th American death) is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives" (emphasis and parenthetical added by me).

That number has now grown by another 1800 plus. Let’s face it; the Colonel was probably distracted when he wrote this email. He’s probably preoccupied figuring he needs to come up with something a little more…, uhmm, sensitive when that “artificial mark on the wall” is doubled.

Cut the Colonel some slack, Glenn. That’s a lot of pressure for a hack who’s too stupid too even realize he’s a hack.

... if little Stevie Boylan is typical of the children running military ops. While it's to be expected that lifelong Republicans are utterly clueless about war (since their knowledge is primarily gained from John Wayne movies and other circle-jerk infotainment), you'd like to think that the actually military leadership wouldn't be as ridiculously stupid as George Bush, Dick Cheny, and Rush Limbaugh. Little Stevie proves otherwise. A complete rightwing tool no different than Litle Billy Kristol or Glenn Beck.

If there was ever a case for adult leadership to immediately return to salvage the wreckage left of the United States under the Republican party, this asshole Boylan sums up the problem beautifully.

I see now after having read Glenn's updates that Boylan is stating that the email wasn't from him. Although very unconvincingly.

"I got drunk last night, and everything I said or did wasn't me. I blacked out.

Regards, Col. hungover Boylan."

You really should accept the good Colonel's invitation to visit Iraq yourself.

I don't doubt that you physically possess a normal pair of balls. And I don't doubt your courage. I believe that actually putting yourself out there, as far and as uncomfortable as you can get from the Green Zone, would be a perspective-changing experience.

Go out with a Stryker patrol. Know what it's like for our grunts and Marines to feel the fear and the adrenalin.

What would you gain? Well, the next time a Colonel Boylan asshole tells you that you don't know what "ground truth" is, you can tell him you've done it, you've been out on night ambush, you've kicked in some doors, you've been fired on.

You do that, and you'll have the "ground truth" and you'll know for a fact, indisputable, that it's not what the Boylans say it is.

Where are the war journalists anymore? Where is the Larry Burroughs of the Iraq War? Where's the Michael Herr?

Glenn, Christiane Amanpour is over there off and on. Richard Engel actually lives in the Green Zone full time. Michael Ware is over there and he files stories on CNN that are going to get him killed one of these days.

So how about you, Glenn? It's a fair question.

I don't thing you are afraid of combat, although you should be and you sure will be if you ever get into the thick of it. If you have anything to fear, I think it would be that you might fear what you discover about yourself and about the soldiers and Marines in our military who do the things our country asks of them, day in and day out, month after grinding month, and they do it for almost no compensation except the pride of service.

So go, Glenn. Prove them wrong and gain something invaluable in the process.

It's clear that they had other other criteria in the personnel decisions that put Boylan in his position, but couldn't they have found a partisan hack who wouldn't embarrassingly hatchet the mother-tongue. He's a public affairs officer, for Reagan's sake.

Here we have, in this one little email, all the elements of the right-wing hack communications style:

- Personal insult.

- An allegation of "unseriousness" on the part of his/her opponent.

- Picking on minor details to discredit the main argument while not refuting the central issue.

- The suggestion that people outside Iraq that disagree are somehow not entitled to criticism.

- The suggestion that someone like Alan Colmes constitutes a "liberal" perspective.

- And the coup de grace, a not-so-veiled dimunition of the masculinity of his/her opponent.

One has to feel an odd combination of wonder, futility, amusement, disgust, and futility reading this kind of hackery. It's almost like an especially bad copy off a horribly malfunctioning assembly line.

We aren't there yet, of course, but a number of colorful concepts from the gulag era seem increasingly applicable.

Like samizdat, as applied to the blogosphere.

And zampolit as applied to apparatchiks like Boylan.

Walt Kelly nailed it decades ago.

http://www.igopogo.com/we_have_met.htm