Well, gee, I guess that settles it. A retired demagogue agrees with another retired demogogue (Gore). Birds of a feather…

Nevertheless, for you to call Jason Zengerle the new Stephen Glass and then come around here all high and mighty takes brass cajones; I salute you.

Three questions: why are you so concerned to defend Jerome Armstrong and Kos from the accusation that Jerome gets paid and Kos comes along? It seems pretty apparent that Mark Warner is the kind of politician Kos would hate in other circumstances – look at how he castigates other centrists. Yet you attack Zengerle – why?

2. On what do you base your belief that I have no integrity? Why not address the questions and avoid sliming me? You’re the one that called Zengerle Stephen Glass; you’re the one who calls Bush supporters mindless automatons who are engaged in a cult of personality; you’re the one who says that George Bush has manufactured a climate of fear in order to – well, in order to help protect us, I guess. Keep me out of it.

3. Why are you focusing on the Advertising Liberally angle, which is a sidebar to the broader story? Since you feel free to say that I have no integrity for merely criticizing you, why not share with us how you feel about Jerome Armstrong’s consent decree and what that says about him and his integrity?

For you to believe — based on nothing — that someone would change what they write on their blog or express political views that they don’t really hold really does suggest that the world you inhabit is integrity-free. That’s the only thing that could account for your willingness to believe that others are that base and craven. I haven’t responded – and almost certainly won’t respond – to insinutations that I write what Kos tells me to write because it’s too stupid to merit a response and, as I said, reveals far more about how people operate who make the accusation than it does about anyone else.

As for your claim that you’re “not buying” what I described in my book about my background — i.e., that I lied in what I wrote — I’d suggest that this, too, reflects a lot more about you than me. I have been extremely clear about the fact that I think the Bush administration poses a genuine threat to the core constitutional principles which have always defined and distinguished our country. As a result, I am more than happy to make common cause with anyone devoted to the goal of removing the one-party rule under which our country is suffering. Bob Barr obviously thinks the same, which is why he agreed to introduce Al Gore’s speech on the threats to liberty posed by the Bush Administration. Bruce Fein obviously thinks the same as he worked with Sen. Feingold to urge a censure of the President.

If opposing the adminsitration and working with those devoted to defeating it makes me a “liberal” in your eyes, so be it. I can’t think of many things less important. But the accusation that I now lied in my book because this all proves that I’m some sort of doctrainnaire liberal who subscribes to the liberal view on political issues is as irrational as it is reckless.

You should ask why it is that you are so willing to believe that people lie and are for sale and are subject to having their vulnerability so easily corrupted. Something about your experiences and behavior has led you to that view.

So, given that Glenn some time back decided that conservatives are just robots for Bush, has he made any public comments on Kos’ declaration that TNR is part of the VRWC for daring to cross the Mighty Man himself?

Each effort to staunch the flow, expose a new wound, but Kos’ ‘silent tx’ is a prescription of doing nothing.

Can’t tell which plan is better. They are equally hopeless.