Reply #82: What I don't understand is,

[Crunchy Frog]

why get ruffled by Tom's post, but not by Julie's, even though it was Julie who brought up the issue in the first place, by criticizing Clark for "feathering his nest", and Tom was merely responding.

I found Tom's response to be a perfectly reasonable analogy to a situation that Julie apparently does not have a problem with.

Since Tom is well known as a promoter and defender of Clark, while Julie claims disinterest in him, I would have expected you to be more mystified by Julie's post in this thread than by Tom's.

You're probably right that speculation on presidential candidacies is just wishful thinking at this point, but that doesn't stop a whole lot of people from doing it. I don't know why one particular group should be singled out for criticism for it.

Also, many people with a favored political figure, or potential candidate seem to be rather touchy over even mild criticism of that person. People tend not to see that touchiness amongst people in their own groups, but it's there nevertheless. I routinely see people here regarding any criticism of their favored political figure as an attack. Clark, however, is the only one that I've seen who is routinely referred to as a "war criminal", "stealth Republican", "PNACer" and other epithets that can genuinely be described as attacks rather than simple criticisms. Clark also seems, by many, to be held to different sets of standards than other political figures. Hence, Tom's post which you were originally questioning.