Top Gun

If I ever meet Michael O'Neal, I'm going to buy him a beer.

As a former civilian analyst for the Department of Defense, I especially appreciated Mr. O'Neal's Town Crier piece titled "It’s About Picking Targets, Not Finding Them" in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Some quotes:

Occasionally, one asks me whether it's hard to find ideas for columns. My response is always "Are you kidding?" The Palouse is what the military fly-boys call a target-rich environment, promiscuous with Birkenstock liberals, blowhard intellectuals, and self-styled activists eager to expose themselves to fire by saying and writing foolish things.

No, my friends, the problem is not finding targets. It’s picking one.

But a defining characteristic of your Birkenstock liberal is that the truth is something that’s easily outflanked. Under his rules of engagement, you can say anything you want as long as it supports the liberal faith.

Sadly, this kind of intellectual dishonesty is rife in the Moscow-Pullman theater.

...the preferred battle tactic of your blowhard intellectual, name calling.

So you get the picture. There are plenty of targets around, but at least they're not very well armed...

So true. So very true. I think we can all relate. This is certainly the best thing I've read in the Town Crier series, and by a professor to boot.