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Great post....I can imagine the following: its 2004 and a freeper posts the following----So what if GWB cut tax every year,unemployment is 3%, the size of government has been cut by 25%,regulations have been reduced, the war on terroism was been won,Saddamn is in a box, crime is down, Bork is on the Supreme Court, and the Reps. control both houses of Congress, I`m not voting for Bush cause he`s not a real conserative and he was not for killing illegal aliens

Come now. See, this is what just drives people away from any serious dialogue. First, you get a diatribe from the original post which basically says ANYONE...ANYONE that disagrees with Bush is a nutcase. That's the first fallacy.
Then we get this list of basic untruths:

the size of government has been cut by 25%. By that you mean "homeland defense" and the Education bill?
cut tax every year. You mean that 40 billion dollar pittance?
Bork is on the Supreme Court. What the freak?? He only just now came out in favor of Pickering at the end of the day when the guy is almost assured of dying in committee!
Repubs control the house and senate. ??? HELLO! This is the same Bush that disappeared into obscurity when Schundler needed his support in NJ?
the war on terroism was been won. So that would be accomplished by hamstringing the Israelis when they confront "global terror" in their backyard, right?

Come on guys! I voted for Bush, I'm thankful he's the Commander-in-Chief for THIS Air Force officer, but I'm not under any kind of illusion that this is some kind of hardcore "conservative revolution" happening in the White House. GW seems to me to be a kind man, a sincere man, and most likable, but that doesn't stop me from grieving over what I see are missteps in the direction of his Administration.

This kind of post just assumes lockstop, mindless allegiance...OR ELSE! Someone from FR will come and take my military ID away? My "true conservative" secret decoder ring will be confiscated? Have we come to the time when people are now all thrown out as Mcainiacs, nutcases and Buchananites who feel for good reason that while Bush is (primarily in terms of character) so much more qualified than Clinton, he is not nearly as principled as he could and should be??

Look, I still voted for Bush and I will gladly do so again as long as the choices remain status quo. I made my vote count in the right direction. Why am I now public enemy #1 because I DARE to ask, "what gives?" when I see Bush (pre 9/11) so gung ho on Mexico?

Of COURSE he has to be a political animal. Thinking people realize that, but you can't boil EVERYTHING he does that looks like he's going left but swearing he's going right as "strategery". You can't create a straw man of conservative critics of Bush as "one issue" disgruntled postal workers. I have MANY fellow military colleagues that feel the way I do. We are glad to have Bush as Commander and glad to have the support of the military in general, but not as happy with many other things. Like we are trained to do, we shrug our shoulders, sigh a hearty "Oh Well!", realize it could be much worse, and hope for a better day. Were we supposed to be in straightjackets instead of BDUs for being such "nutcases"?

First, you get a diatribe from the original post which basically says ANYONE...ANYONE that disagrees with Bush is a nutcase. That's the first fallacy.

It was intentional hyperbole; I fully admit that. I was using it to fight hyperbole from the other side. It's not the mere questioning of Bush's decisions that I have a problem with; it's the naysayers and doomdwellers that run around ranting and raving "By God I'll never vote for Bush again!" over a single decision on a single issue that didn't go their way. And the way the usual Bush-hater crowd then piles on such threads either for kicks or out of some psychological need to rationalize their misguided beliefs that "Bush is going DOWNNNNN!" It's just too over-the-top.

That said, it's a testimony to the power and the fairness of FR. If such a thread had ever come up about Bill Clinton on DU, every single ranter would have been banned within two minutes of their first questioning of Clinton's actions, and the thread would have been deleted. Instead, on FR the thread is now at nearly 900 comments and still going strong, and includes heavy participation by the owner of the site itself.