I guess you noticed the satirical tone of my post?! And you noticed my mentioning of einstein, who cleared up William of Occam's original version on how to decide which of several competing theories should be chose. einstein advised to make a theory as simple as possible [i]but not simpler[/i].

Now, as to Col. Boylan and his probable wrongdoings, I can either give him the benefit of the doubt - which I think is prudent and typically leads to a much more condemning conclusion - or I can use my prejudices and judge on their basis. In all my life I found it to be more satisfying to leave out ones prejudices, find a satisfying conclusion, and reassess the prejudices - throwing them overboard if necessary [not in this case, granted].

Is Col. Boylan, as you express, a Bush-hack? I have no idea, I actually do not care much about the presumed psychology of him. does he see himself as a partisan, a hard-core Bushite? I don't know. I can, OTOH, draw conclusions from his actions [incl. writings etc.].

"Since I always assume the best of people, I cannot see how Col. Boylan is a liar, he is a distinguished military man, who is all about honesty. According to William of Occam and Albert Einstein this leads to the conclusion:

d) is the correct answer."

Your naive assumption means you are not employing Occam's Razor, simply citing it in order to justify your subjective feelings on the matter and give yourself a veneer of objectivity.

The simplest explanation is that Boylan did write the email in question and is simply refusing to acknowledge it because it could cause him trouble.

If an underling wrote this for him he would say so, since that provides him with an easy, if slightly embarrassing, out. His tone is consistent with someone who would have no problem blaming someone else for his mistakes; that is, in his correspondence he comes across as an arrogant Bush Leaguer.

RMP, you wrote:

Thanks. I think you're right. But my comments on PAOs is still valid considering his last sentence.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying, which was simply that there aren't many promotion opportunities available for a PAO who's already an O-6. In any case, Boylan has clearly risen to the level of his incompetance.

Oh, and please don't confuse me with the Hornetdriver, or whatever his handle is. I don't fly jets. I flew Blackhawks in the Army, hence the HawkDriver handle. And I'm not some right wing nutjob. I'm just a recently retired officer who's tired of watching right wing bullshit go unchallenged.

"Can we move on, now? This blog is a lot more interesting when you take on the big boys."???

Who does he think the "big boys" are? This topic is HUGE! Either Boylan is a ranting, right-wing, pajama-clad cyber-shouter, or our military's computers are completely compromised. One way or the other, something is seriously wrong. You go, Glenn!

I cannot thank you enough for your unflagging determination and your patience. Stay with it, Glenn. It is a very, very important issue.

Let's look at the evidence:

1. All e-mails purportedly coming from Col. Boylan show the same tracking info as those acknowledged by Col. Boylan being from him.

2. Col. Boylan denies having written or sent the odd e-mail.

Probable explanations:

a) Col. Boylan misleads about the acknowledged e-mails.

b) He misleads about the e-mails in question [the supposed fake ones].

c) There is no Col. Boylan and your e-mail communications have been with somebody else entirely.

d) Col. Boylan is real as are the e-mails, which all originated from a computer that should be under constant vigil. He only did not physically write and send them. It was his valet, he just dictated them and told his valet to send them; so he never wrote, he never sent, he never lied.

Since I always assume the best of people, I cannot see how Col. Boylan is a liar, he is a distinguished military man, who is all about honesty. According to William of Occam and Albert Einstein this leads to the conclusion:

d) is the correct answer.

This is a distraction from the real problems we face. We've got a president who orders people abducted and tortured, and who launches one illegal war of aggression and is plotting another -- and we're talking about a colonel whose main job is to type press releases, and who doesn't even have very much of that to do, judging by the extent to which he appears to be able to surf the web and send out anonymous emails in the middle of a war.

This is what people said about people going after anyone but Bush. What they utterly fail to recognize is that all of these people are in lock-step; they are an exact representation of Bush. Just as Pravda was a rubber stamp of the Soviet empire. Betray-Us, Boylan, Drudge, O’Reilly, Rice, Cheney, Bush - they are all part of one ‘truth’. They are holographic figures. Whatever one of them thinks, all of them think, do and say.

I was all for Move-On going after Betray-Us. I’m all for the blogosphere going after this Boyland shill, because what he says comes right from the lips of his commanding general and that in turn comes directly from the lips of our president.

Go get him, Glenn.

Either you're a bootlicker or you're a terrorist.

Happiness is mandatory.

In this ignorant world, the military would take this line of logic:

1. Positive public perception is part of the war effort.

2. People who criticise the war are undermining the war effort.

3. Therefore, part of our role in the military is to undermine those who criticise the war effort.

4. We treat pro-war media well and anti-war media badly because it bolsters support for the war effort.

5. Glenn probably understands our point of view, but his goal is to make us look politicised rather than acknowledging our legitimate war work of improving public perception. So we should not respond to him.