I think we've all run across the kind of person who tells you that you need plastic surgery, don't dress right, can't swing a golf club for beans, can't cook like his Mom, drive too fast, and probably could use mouthwash.

When hauled up short on this behavior, the astonished person protests that it's just "honest criticism." He may even really think so.

Your denial is showing. What if the person in question really is butt-ugly, has poor fashion sense, is a klutz on the links, can't cook, drives too fast, and has halitosis?

What if the emperor really has no clothes? I'm going to tell it like it is, just like the kid in the fairy tale. If the nudity of your Emperor offends you, don't blame me.

You're trying again to hide behind the "evil leftists out there aren't the nice liberals here" dodge. I think Bush is dishonest and has engaged in a pattern of conscious deception of the American people. On those grounds I have become anti-Bush, and I don't mind admitting it. Opposing him is not the irrational unthinking "hatred" you use to belittle such opposition and avoid addressing the charges. Your remarks about the "leftists out there" who interpret Bush's actions and words the same way apply to me too.

Your denial is showing when you distort what we say, spinning the charge against Bush into the passive one of "allowing people to believe" in the false connection between Saddam and 9/11. That's not what anybody's saying, that's merely the straw man you wish you faced. The false belief in a Saddam-9/11 connection didn't coalesce out of a vacuum. I've documented the pattern of deliberate implication that created that false impression, and you yourself have provided links to articles that describe the same phenomenon independently of my observations.

Amusingly, at one point you dismissed the technique as my hallucination, then threatened to analyze Democratic speeches to show how everybody else is using this supposedly nonexistent technique. You're so desperate to deny Bush's dishonesty that you can't keep your story straight.

Another rhetorical red herring is the demand that those who criticize Bush come up with better solutions. Here's a news flash for you: We don't have to. Not coming up with better answers doesn't invalidate the criticism, nor does it make Bush's actions correct. And when it comes to Iraq, Bush has cleverly painted us into a corner, rendering moot any discussion of alternatives. We're stuck with his mess, and while we can hope to make the best of Bush's bad situation, it is quite legitimate to be displeased to be in this bad situation. Bush screwed up and he can't evade being held accountable for it. That he used deception to maneuver us into this mess removes any defense that it was an innocent mistake.

In that regard, then, Don's posts are quite legitimate. He's endeavoring to make sure that Bush is held accountable for his deceptions and his mistakes. Don's not obligated to propose alternatives, and who cares anyway? It's not like the White House monitors HabitableZone looking to harvest ideas. I haven't seen any of your ideas translated into policy, so what makes you think you can hold Don and me to a higher standard?

Is being critical of Bush a partisan act? That's not a simple question. We all know that the point of criticizing or praising Bush is to influence the next election, and so on that fundamental level then, sure, all our conversations here are partisan. But to imply, as you do, that criticism of Bush is "merely" partisan is to put the cart before the horse. It's an almost superstitious point of view, as if opposition to Bush materialized first out of the aether at the behest of some invisible supernatural entity, and then that opposition led to criticism; and thus any opposition to Bush and his policies has no substance. Another straw man argument. The painful (for you) reality is the proper relation of cause to effect: The perception that Bush has been dishonest and deceptive and has made some stupid moves leads naturally and rationally to opposition.

I know that you constantly post links, but it's the nature of those links that's a commentary on the level of discussion these days. Most of them are simply links to pundits who share your views, and repeat the same theme of ad homineum attacks on those who disagree, and questioning of their motives and patriotism. On the question of Bush's deliberate campaign to plant the false impression of a Saddam-9/11 link, where are the references to countering evidence? How about looking at a significant sample of Bush's public statements and showing that some meaningful percentage of them don't use the trick of juxtaposing September 11th with Iraq (or for that matter, any other issue for which Bush sees adantage in exploiting September 11th)?

Maybe you think you're behaving rationally, but I don't see it that way. I see emotional responses driven by anger...and anger is usually driven by fear. It's that primate psychology thing again. The conservative tribe feels threatened by outsiders, and is capering around shrieking and flinging feces in an agressive display aimed at intimidating the Others. It may even seem to work for a while. Note Davin's comment that he's stayed away recently; so have others. But it's not because anybody's impressed by your tribe's strength and skill at feces-flinging. It's just an aversion to feces.