Apparently not much. Col. Boylan's English:syntax, style and grammar, are those of a 12 year old. The infantile and pathetic content of his message to Glen is bad enough, but when you realize that this guy is supposed to be a fairly high ranking officer in the US military, you shudder at the notion that we are spending, or rather, wasting, half a trillion dollars per year on the military budget, and all that for a military that produces infantile morons like Boylan.

That email sounds like the typical right wing bs. What is wrong with these people?

Also, what is wrong with the American people? Where is the outrage over the Bush tactics. Why aren't more people taking to the streets to demand change.

I think we need to begin impeachment against Bush. Rather than disrupt all the things the Democrats are "going to do:,

it might put some fear into him and his followers.

Thanks for all the great work you do.

Bill

When Pete Stark was excoriated by the wingnuts for stating that President Unitard was sending US troops to die in Iraq for the president's "amusement", it was clear to me that this remark was defensible, if the Democratic leadership was willing to back him up instead of buying into the Stark Raving Mad condemnation.

I believe that the Democrats had a handy "talking point" to support the general truth of Stark's impassioned comment, while still putting some daylight between them and the controversial word "amusement" that triggered all of the faux-outrage: the Dems, when confronted by teevee infotainwhores like Russert, Stephanopolous, etc., could/should have blithely assented that they could see how Stark's use of "amusement" may have been unfortunate, and perhaps misunderstood-- but after all, politicians speaking in the heat of the moment sometimes don't use the best wording.

Then they could/should have politely and respectfully referenced any of a thousand Unitard clips, e.g. "peeance freeance". See? It happens to the "best of us"! the Dems could/would have earnestly declared. I think this approach might've successfully nullified the infotainwhore's stock feigned astonishment or skepticism.

I mention this tangent in response to those who are surprised at Boylan's crude and fractured writing. Whether he was sober when he wrote it is beside the point. The point is that if such boorish, inarticulate, provocative, and even nonsensical utterances are tolerated in a Commander-in-Chief, it's no surprise that standards of conduct and capability for subordinates would sink to that level.

If this story has legs, and I think it ought to, I'm sure that wingnut bloggers will champion both Boylan's sending the e-mail to Glenn and Boylan's incoherent, snide, and captious message. True Believers and Patriots, operating with maximum cognitive dissonance, will disregard or discount the suggestion that Boylan's words and style evidence dangerously irrational and hostile thinking unacceptable in a truly professional military officer.

When military forces in an autocracy are politicized to this extent, "professional" standards slide to the lowest common denominator of amorally Defending the Boss (and his policies) and battling the designated Enemy(ies). I'm sure that to Boylan, Glenn is an irritant equivalent to an al-Qaeda terrorist who Hates Our Freedoms.

I guess I'm just pointing out that Boylan's e-mail is further proof that military officers currently in charge of "handling the truth" aren't required to be of good character, and to think and express themselves in a rational, dispassionate, civilized, enlightened manner. It's another of the depredations wrought by the criminal cabal in power.

PS: I expect that Nancy "Miss Manners" Pelosi will publicly apologize on Glenn's behalf.

The following is to record some facts, not to urge action one way or the other about verification:

1. The October 21, 2005 issue of Scimitar, available online, has the email address of "Combined Press Information Center Director Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan", therefore I judge that the email address is in the public domain.

2. It is easy enough to get some basic information about the iraq.centcom.mil servers. If I were a braver man I might attempt to make a simple test to see if it is possible to make those servers serve fake email. Right now I don't even want to try to ping them.

3. Assuming a forgery, I doubt someone would be as simple-minded as outlined here:

https://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/Security/headers-tutorial.html

Someone pointed out on the first page that there have always been military officers with attitudes that betray an ignorance of what they're supposed to be sworn to defend.

In the late 80's, I was on the division staff of the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) at Fort Lewis, Washingtong. Two events took place while I was there; one, a LTC proposed that commanders should be able to "inspect" the off-post residences of their soldiers just as they could conduct "Health and Welfare Inspections" of the troops in the barracks. These inspections were basically warrantless searches of the personal effects of soldiers in the barracks. The problem was that the Army's authority to conduct such searches ran out at the borders of the military reservation. When informed of this, the LTC said (in writing, mind you) that it was a damn shame that the 4th Amendment got in the way of enforcing "necessary military discipline" off the military reservation.

Then there was the wife of the division's provost marshall (ranking military police officer) who was on a one woman crusade against Playboy and Penthouse being sold in the PX, and was petitioning the division and corps commanders (I Corps was stationed at Lewis and the I Corps Commander was also the Post Commander) to implement her little censorship scheme.

I don't know what the provost marshall himself though of this, but the fact that this woman's proposal hit my office (and my boss was laughing his head over it...it was clearly something that the division commander would not touch with a ten foot pole) indicated that his wife was acting in such a way that he'd be at least counselled on it. The notion that military wives have rank is an old one that has never quite gone away, no matter how ludicrious it is in the first place.

So, attitudes that had been kept tamped down with only occasional flareups in the open seem to be, under the regime of the petulant three year old, cropping up more often.