LH, At no point did I make the "lazy" or "ususal facile assumption" that people who disagree with me are fools. A more careful reading would show that I confined my remarks to this issue. There are many liberals whom I completely disagree with, and yet profoundly respect, ie Joe Biden, Charlie Rangel, and Mario Cuomo to name just a few, and I have to believe that whether or not they would say so in public, they would regard this issue as utter claptrap by slathering loonies whom they cannot afford to offend since they fill up the back of the classroom on very cold nights at Democratic rallies.

(Those who know me are not suprised that I regard vociferous fundamentalists of either stripe with the same weather eye, and became pro-choice after I had to guard an abortion clinic from the lunatic fringe of the Catholic and Baptist churches. And be advised, this was not a knee-jerk reaction, but the cold calculation that abortion might eventually reduce the potential number of these wackoids).

And wasen't it a Lazy Assumption on your part, about my having lazy assumptions?

Additional points I made, which I still wait to see repudiated by something other than vitriolic invective:

1. Any diplomatic move with the world importance of Kissingers drive to open up China, especially in view of the fall of the Soviet Union, (one of the more consumate products of the "China Card").

Even though I stated "Kissinger did as much for peace as any politician of his day", unlike the statement about Paxton, Kissinger was the one truely "ahead of his day".

Paxton was one of a maudlin herd of folksingers writing tantrum songs that took a day at the most to finish. Kissinger is regarded universally as the architect of the China policy, fighting single-handedly against the very conservatives you decry, to sell the plan to a very (as usual) suspicious Nixon. And it took years to develop, in absolute secrecy.

Like most winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, Kissinger won it for partaking in talks which ended a regional conflict , but his greatest contribution to world peace went unheralded by any prize. Even though China is now the only nation even remotely capable of taking on the US, we are on a better footing with it now, due to Kissinger, than we ever were with a nation that three years after being an Ally, pulled Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain.

2. My second point was to ask anyone to name any song by Tom Paxton addressing Tiennamien Square, the Killing Fields or Pol Pot. Since he was so "of his time", this should be easy to refute. (Are there ANY english language songs about these subjects written by liberals who were "appalled by the atrocities". It sounds "apallingly" quiet to me... maybe some poetry?)

3. And this "international campaign" sounds like a group of ESL types, with free email, nobody to speak to, and too much time on their hands. Certainly more time than I have... (changing jobs from Disaster Planning to a new job as Safey Director at a Job Corps training center, after a riot tore the place up. "There's a new sheriff in town".)

I may not be able to get back to this debate soon, but I will look it up...