Housekeeping

A quick note regarding an earlier post.

We had a little situation take place where a number of commenters brought up criticisms of Barack Obama. Another poster took offense and mounted a spirited and to my mind fairly persuasive counterargument, especially about rumors floating around about Sen. Obama's wife. Unfortunately, the discussion led to the floating of an old canard about Sen. McCain, which bothered me quite a lot, along with a comparison of some participants here with the Richard Hofstader theory of the "paranoid style" in American politics. That bothered me even more.

So we're clear about it, here's where I stand.

We have free speech at Mr. Dilettante, but my expectation is that commenters here choose their words carefully. I don't want to traffic in rumors and innuendo here and I certainly don't want to see discussions turn into flame wars. I am quite fortunate that the people who visit my blog are almost uniformly smart, gracious people (except for this ne'er do well). Vigorous discussion is welcome; ad hominem arguments, not so much.

Muchas gracias.