The answer to your first rhetorical question is easy:
What is with this shoot first and try diplomacy later shit?
Well, Todd, when your main benefactor's putative "leader" takes that attitude, and makes it clear that such behavior is at least acceptable and maybe even encouraged ("Either your for us or against us", "Bring it on!" etc. etc.
ad nauseum), and you add to that a large dose of persecution complex, what
do you expect?
jb4
"So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't."
— Stephen Colbert, at the White House Correspondent's Dinner 29Apr06
