In your point #2, you ask why they haven't asked you for the original email. One answer would be that Boylan really sent it, but there is another plausible answer. If a normal private party wanted to investigate the provenance of an email, asking for a copy would be a virtual prerequisite. But the military is not a private party, and we now know that the telcos are giving the government free access to pretty much every email any of us send or receive. In other words, they could well be looking at the original email (as well as every other message you have sent and received) without your help or knowledge. The Bush Administration has made it clear that the 4th Amendment is another one of those quaint anachronisms, like the Geneva Conventions.

That said, I think the conclusion that Boylan did in fact write the email in question seems the most likely explanation. But I do think it is at least theoretically possible that they could be aggressively investigating without telling you. (And I shudder to think what they are investigating.

You said, "If i acted with even a quarter of these people incompetence with my patients i would long have been fired already."

I don't think Boylan will be fired for his incompetence, because he is doing exactly what the Bush administration wants him to do -- attack dissent wherever he finds it, then deny responsbility when he is called out. It's a tactic, and the Bush administration has used it effectively. If you want evidence, read the newspapers and watch television. The media are frightened of the thugs in the White House. They do not investigate, they do not report. They are lapdogs, because they have been cowed into submission through just this type of intimidation. Now the administration is using this tactic against bloggers who oppose their policies. The are stalwart authoritarians and their goal is to silence dissent.

Boylan is no "small fry" as Glenn has pointed out. He's the mouthpiece for He That Cannot Be Questioned. You let behaviour like Boylan's go and it continues to prop up the "The Left is Weak and Devious" and "The Left Hates The Troops" memes that the wingnuts then take to their electorate (and beyond). Glenn has been attacking this dynamic quite effectively for months now. Keep the teeth in this numbnut's backside, Glenn!

I sense a Medal of Honor coming for SteveO, followed quickly by a high position in the Republican nominee's campaign office...

..

You wrote:

Yeah - sorry for writing about someone as petty and small as the Public Affairs Officer and official Spokesman for the Supreme Commanding General in the Iraq War.

Apology accepted. Needless to say, I stand by my characterization of him as a "middle manager" and a "flak." I think that, in general, such people are not very important ... certainly not in comparison with the people who order or carry out the killing or the torture.

And you write:

I wrote about this for the first time on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. That's 48 hours. I think we have different definitions of "obssession."

Well, I count four articles in that period with a total of 11 updates. If you've even written a comparable series of torture blogs with a comparable number of updates in a comparable period of time, I'll eat my hat.

And you write:

If there were a nuclear war and a blogger wrote about that, there would always be someone in comments -- or several people -- to come and say: "I don't like this topic. Write about X or Y instead. Move on."

Well, that's ridiculous hyperbole, and you know it. And you write:

The titles indicate what I'm writing about. If you're not interested in this topic, there isn't anything preventing you from skipping it (it will most likely have the word "Boylan" in it).

Excuse the hell out of me. I didn't realize the "comments" section was really just the "applause" section. My bad. Hail Glenn. Really.

in the US military. It's laughable to speculate that someone in his unit snuck into his office and sent the message in his name, because the style of the messages as well as their hostile&aggressive nature are identical.beyond the email issue, the similarity to Bolshevism is startling. A propagandist political shill as a spokesman for a general who is a political creature, doing what is good for the regime, not the nation, spouting out regime propaganda and intimidating those who won't toe the line.

Completely agree, as Greenwald outlines your point in his post. No one is getting fired on this one, and of course there will be no investigation, period. Why? Because they are doing EXACTLY what this Administration wants them to do. As Glenn alludes to over and over, why do you think this Administration installed their political operatives in the military in the first place?

However, the fact that they got busted cold in this very strange email exchange does demonstrate to these Bush operatives that the same rules of intimidation toward the corporate media do not apply to the bloggers. So we will continue to see these little operative turds run away from confrontation like Greenwald has forced upon them. But rest assured they will continue to run toward their cheerleaders in the Wingnut blogosphere or their cowering corporate media lapdogs.

With all that said, anyone else feel we're in the freaking Twilight Zone? This entire ordeal is simply getting downright weird.

Glenn,

Egypt Steve's "comments" suggest that he is a concern troll, trying to get you to talk about something, anything, else than this topic. Like you I am not very sophisticated in IP addresses etc., but is there a way for you to check where his comments are coming from? I'd bet dollars to donuts it is a GOP operative or right-wing blogger or Fox News employee. In fact, I would not be surprised if it came from Boylan himself, one of his staff or even the White House. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but these people literally know no shame, have no limits and really do not feel they will feel any personal responsibility for their actions, so such a move would not surprise me at all.

Additionally, "take on the big boys" does not seem like a typical Unclaimed Territory reader's comments. Any regular UT reader knows you don't "take on the big boys" but rather call out hypocrites and sycophants of any political persuasion (or gender) who make hypocritical and sycophantic statements.

This guys smells like a troll, warts and all.