"And I recall posting here over a year ago raising questions about the veracity of these claims and having my patriotism questioned because of it."

"The courage to speak out is the highest act of patriotism there is. Those who bitterly questioned the patriotism of those questioning the reasons to go to war, are themselves, less than true patriots for a country that supposedly values and cherishes the right to speak freely."

Here is Don claiming to have the highest patriotism and saying those that said anything against his view had lower patriotism.
I don't think that objectively anyone can say that Don demonstrated any high level of patriotism with what he has said in his various postings. The main effort of Don's posting "seems" to be his opposition to a President and this opposition is merely partisan. The Dems "obsession" with bashing Bush is not healthy for this nation. The question about what is patriotism can be answered by asking what is good for our nation. Wishing to harm our nation is unpatriotic. Damaging the morale of our soldiers is unpatriotic. Doing or saying things which aid an enemy is unpatriotic.
Don claims "the courage to speak out is the highest act of patriotism there is". Sorry Don, the highest act of patriotism is to be a soldier putting one's life on the line in order to serve our country. And merely posting the body count of US soldiers who died; is not the "highest act of patriotism". Honoring those who have fallen in battle is a decent thing to do. If the soldiers over Iraq think you are honoring these soldiers then one is doing something decent. But it is not for Don or myself to judge whether Don's daily posting of those that died is honoring those soldiers- it's the families and the soldiers to make this call.
Regarding "The courage to speak out". First where is the grave danger in posting? And what opinion is Don expressing- mosting he links to what others have said. How is posting biased news stories "bravely" stating one's opinion. Second part, taking risk for the sake of one's country is patriotism. Taking risk for the sake of one's political party is not patriotism [partisan, yes]. Taking risks to damage one's country is not patriotism- it's treason. In summary, "The courage to speak out" can have dangers, e.g. one of those dangers is one might actually mistakenly say something which could result in damaging the country.
"The courage to speak out" is not a mindless activity, and in regards to being patriot it's assumed one has the best intentions of doing something which serves our country. The question of patriotism is largely dependent on intentions. It's hard to know what another person's intention is. Hoping that President is successful in conducting the war in Iraq- bringing about peace and having Iraqis take full control of their country. Would be patriotic. Hoping that the president is unsuccessful and that Iraq becomes a unresolvable situation of endless chaos, resulting in all coalition force needing to evenually withdraw without achieving a good result of successfully changing the regime is unpatriotic. To say that a total of 600 US soldiers dying (of more than 100,000) and to having only spent just over a year in Iraq as a quagmire, either means one is utterly clueless, or one is expecting things to become much worse than what is the current Miltary assessments of the situation. Lacking any evidence to support the notion that it is a quagmire, it's merely a vulgar campaign slogan of the extreme left wing of the Dems.