Publishing this column has its rewards, and also its irritations. The rewards are you Readers who write in and discuss, amplify, emend and yes, even correct us. The irritations are those who disagree, but instead of discussing facts (always acceptable), or analyzing (also always acceptable) or debating (as welcome as praise), instead call us names. One of the popular names to be called is "Liberal". This is the favorite adjective of death of those who, like the Hezbollah, are warriors of a strange faith, in their case belief in the incompetent Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld management. As an example, a fellow with poor manners writes in and asks to be added to the OO E-mail distribution list, and in the course of asking for this free service said, referring to the OO's last column [EthicalAction, OO # 653]: "... you liberals always make things sound so easy. Thank goodness your [sic] not running the ‘free world'. Fighting barbaric behavior with a little unethical behavior is OK by me." Now, Readers, aside from this fellow's grammatical mistake, he makes the mistake of thinking that calling somebody "Liberal" is reasoned argument. It is not. In the column, for example, the OO said terrorists, IF (but only if) convicted, should be shot at dawn, and that assassination of Saddam was a desirable ethical alternative : "offing him was correct". This is not soft-headed Liberalism, and the rude applicant hasn't explained how keeping bin Laden's taxi driver forever in Guantanamo Hell moves us morally or practically forward.

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