Trying not to lose my temper

The Creative Minority Report guys are good people. They also don't deserve a pissing match in their comments section, so I'm trying to be civil.

It started here. A fellow in the comments to that thread mentioned that Palin's lack of experience was troubling to him...

Obama aside; Biden aside; DailyKos and their illogic aside; even McCain aside--I just don't see myself voting for Palin. I just don't think she has "it" to run the free world if it came to that...

I happened along later and replied:

jon - you're not voting for Palin, you're voting for McCain. Palin may never serve a day as President even if the ticket wins two terms. On the other hand, voting for Obama based on Palin's supposed inability to lead in a tight spot is akin to hiding in a lion's den because you're afraid of being scratched by a house cat.

Well, you know, I thought I had myself a winning metaphor there, until one of their regular commenters took it upon himself to give me a civics lesson.

That said, both are on the ballot. Don't believe me? Check the ballot in November. Not one name. Two names. You are voting for both, not just one. This is verifiable. This is fact. Can we please stick to that?

Thank you David L Alexander! I didn't much like the condescension. I figured it was plain from context what I meant - you are not voting for Palin FOR PRESIDENT. She may never serve a day in that capacity. McCain is the one to compare to Obama.

(Of course, if Obama insists on drawing that comparison.... heheheheheheh.)

In any case, I was miffed and said so.

DLA - I am not six. I know they're both on the ballot. I also know in which order they appear, and in which offices they would serve. Obama's lack of experience - heck, his lack of about everything presidential - looms much larger that does Palin's experience and skill, given that he would be in the Big Chair from Day One while Palin may spend eight years presiding over the Senate. Hence my subsequent comment about voting for Obama because one feels Palin isn't up to a job that she may never hold anyway. Besides, I thought it was clever. ;)

Because, you know, picking that one statement from its context in the exchange and making me seem like a doofus? Yeah, that was fairly crappy. Based solely on his online work, I expected better of him, though I doubt he expected better of me, nor cared one way or the other. He did care enough to reply to the above, thus:

nightfly wrote: "DLA - I am not six. I know they're both on the ballot."
nightfly also wrote: "jon - you're not voting for Palin, you're voting for McCain."
I rest my case.

What case was that? The case of incredible nitpicking pissantery? I didn't think I had to be so painfully obvious, especially after going back to explain the initial comment. And now I get to see both of the comments sliced up and reassembled to suit someone else's willful stupidity.

Sigh. Sure, it's thin-skinned of me. This guy doesn't seem like a jerk, nor a fool, but what do I make of the above? I didn't piss in his cornflakes, so why is he pissing in mine?

In any case, somebody as obviously smart as he is should have understood what I meant in the context of the discussion - and a Catholic brother in Christ should not be so condescending. Nor is it particularly honest to ignore the point of my comments; nor is it particularly charitable to take sentences out of context from different points of the discussion and put them together to intentionally make me look worse than I am. Was it necessary to insist on a completely by-the-letter reading of one part in my statement and turn it into the focus of the conversation?

Yet another reason why I will never run for anything more important than a bus.