• You folks seem to be laboring under the misguided delusion that I am for some reason trolling a comic-and-superhero-oriented forum while "masquerading" under a different persona in an attempt to hide my true character so I can surreptitiously mislead everyone and accrue massive plus Charisma points for some nefarious end.

• Oddly enough, the truth of the matter is that I am merely trying to behave in a respectful manner while in the Chief's house -- this IS "the house that John Byrne built" in that it is JB's "home" here on the Internet. All of us are here as JB's "guests," so while I will engage in open discussion here, I always attempt to do so in a manner that is as respectful as possible to JB's other "guests." I will -- as respectfully as possible -- call out illogical silliness when I see it on display, especially when people try to pass it off as "truth," but I will not "pee on the carpets" while doing so in JB's house.

• 
  

• Beyond that, you can bait me all you want, you can make allegations about me and declare them as "facts" -- that's between you and JB, and, hence, not my problem.

  
  

• In the meantime, I will do my best to maintain what I hope JB considers an "acceptable" tone, out of respect for him.

• That includes parking my use of terms like "Obamacare" at the door -- on MY facebook page, I can say whatever I like . . . THAT'S the beauty of the First Amendment, like it or not.

  
  

  Using a broad brush to try to paint me as a "FOX News-loving, right-wing, Republican @$$-licking, Tea-Party conservative nutjob" (obviously not your words, to be sure, but certainly my interpretation of your general tone), though, is way off-base, especially when you know nothing about me . . . and if you think you know anything about me from browsing a few facebook posts and reading a few posts here in this thread, then I think you've probably got a pretty narrow and intolerant world view.

  I suppose we all do what it takes to hold your heads high and feel like the righteous ones, though . . . and, unfortunately, that's pretty much how you get to where we are now with Syria.

  
  

If you don't like being painted in such a negative way, then stop posting such nasty hateful political propaganda. Also stop putting hateful words into the mouths of others.

Assad is agreeing to hand over his CW but PBO is still going to make his case to attack?  Guess that tells you what the agenda is.

At least Dubya actuallly believed there was WMD in Iraq.  PBO is going to attack knowing that Assad is willing to give his up.

If Congress says no and he attacks anyway, despite Assad's cooperation, I would have no problem if Congress began impeachment proceedings.  This is not what I voted twice for.

I have to give the White House credit for finding a peaceful resolution.  I think the Syrians were really afraid that US would bomb the heck out of them.

I am happy we were able to arrive at a peaceful resolution, but the Obama administration really comes across as amateurs in this situation.  Obama's offhanded remark initially about chemical weapons, which could have forced the US to take military action and now Kerry's offhanded remark about Syria turning over the weapons.

Craig, there has to be a credible threat of force to compel Syria to cooperate.  The Obama still have to make the case to the American people if Assad backs out of the deal.

I certainly hope that it plays out that way.  The Russian FM said that Putin and Obama did not make any back-deal negotiations at the G20 summit behind the backs of the Syrians, but it sure seems like they did. 

Whatever it takes to save face, I suppose.

The reality is that Russia is propping up Syria just as China is propping up North Korea.  Assad will do whatever Putin wants.

Russia has a lot of incentives to keep Assad in power and the US as far away as possible.  They have a military base there and sells billions of dollars of weapons to Syria.