Readers, especially political adversaries, should note that this blog offers no carte blanche for posting insulting, offensive or utterly disengenuous cheapshots directed at me. Therefore, the comment offered by Mr. Gray is offered here in excerpts I see fit to post, together with my response.

First, it needs to be established that any self-serving attempts by Mr. Gray to describe what Mr. Gray writes as attempting to point out my hypocricy is hypocritical itself. All of the mentally creative ways he has come up with to denigrate my life, assassinate my character, and lob cheap, low insults, is nothing more than intimidation to shut me up. It was the theme of his letter to the editor on March 26: if I don't have anything nice to say about Obama, I should just shut up.

All the convoluted bashing of my record and attempts to paint me as a hypocrite for being a war protester in my youth, but a supporter of the military and their mission as an adult does nothing but demean Mr. Gray. He would have had nothing bad to say about me if I hadn't written critically about the President, and all other elements of his arguments are irrelevant because my speaking uncomfortable truths about Obama is the only cause for the rest of his diatribes.

What Mr. Gray has been doing is, in fact, nothing but practicing the "politics of personal destruction" since he admits in his comment that he didn't even attempt to address the factual criticism of Obama I had written. It qualifies as nothing short of attempts at intimidation and written thuggery, bashing me with ad hominem (personal attacks as opposed to issue and intellectual arguments) brickbats. I do not have one single bone of dislike or disrespect for the person or character or record of Mr. Gray's life but will describe his type of debate (if it can be called such since he has yet to offer any counter-argument, or conflicting information to dispute my original criticisms of his apparent hero, Barack Obama) as beneath contempt.