John Kerry had better not have any stock in getting support off of his support base among online bloggers.

With the exception of a few notables, I have found the majority of bloggers that support Kerry to be virulent bullies that have zero tolerance for another person's religious or political position. In short, they're everything they consistently accuse the right of being.

The situation of one of our latest bullies underscores this. With the assistance of a friend, he passes on a half assed apology, and expects people to welcome him back with open arms. This from the person who asserted that I had no right to editorial control over my blogs, then proceeded to blacklist me from his blogs (after I had blacklisted him from mine in all fairness; but note, I never stated that we shouldn't have a right to edit our own blogs), and deleted every article from every individual that dared to disagree with him so that his comments were a healthy string of "you go girl" responses. This person considers anything less than verbally abusing and belittling one's opponent to be unintelligent, uninspired responses, and has made a point of letting us know that.

After he gets chucked from the site, he has his friend come in with his "apology", and the friend is quite notably a Kerry supporter. While the friend has thus far acted more rationally than the original offender, he has felt the need to justify the original offender's actions (note: an apology is an expression of SORROW for one's opinions; it's not a set of rationalizations). The first thing through my mind is that, if this individual represents what Kerry supporters are all about, it's no wonder I want nothing to do with them.

Now don't get me wrong, I know many good, decent responsible Kerry supporters and my decision as to whom I am voting for is not based on the actions or attitudes of the followers of a certain candidate. But I AM saying that if I were an undecided, the attitudes and actions of a minority of Kerry followers might be enough to turn me off to Kerry if they were the ones I read most predominantly.

Note: This is NOT meant to reflect on the many fine, respectful liberals that make up joeuser's blogging community. It's meant to reflect on the virulent few.

signing off,

Gideon MacLeish