great expectations

My dear friends, the kind of response I was hoping for when I wrote that previous post was something like this:

Well, Alan, I hardly think we’re in for another Night of the Long Knives or a re-run of the McCarthy era — that’s not what you’re suggesting, is it? — but that really wasn’t the smartest thing for the White House staff to say. They should have known that a request to report to the White House anything “fishy” was bound to get spun as the first steps towards totalitarianism.

See, wouldn’t that have been reasonable and constructive? Instead I got a bunch of rotten eggs flung at my door.

People. Seriously. This isn’t the Daily Kos or No Left Turns. This is The American Scene — the Scene, man! — an oasis — yeah, I know I’m changing metaphors, just bear with me — an oasis of civilized discourse in the vast desert of the political blogosphere. Granted, it’s an oasis with a few putrid patches, but we know how to step over those, don’t we?

Really, I’m disappointed in you folks. Try to do better the next time, okay?