Goldberg and Guthrie

John Derbyshire - who a few days ago referred to the events at Abu Ghraib as "hi jinks" - is now soliciting e-mails in response to his recommendation of a 30 day sentence for one of the American torturers. (God he's an asshole. But moving on...) He only wants the opinion of those in the military or who have military experience... however, he notes this:

I'm getting e-mail from a lot of retired military folk who just want to be heard; I'm also told that a lot of non-military people (e.g. contractors) can send *.mil e-mail, a thing I didn't know; so I'm throwing it open to anyone with military credentials.

Interesting. Now, if you're not a frequent reader of the conservative blogosphere I don't recommend that you start. However, conservative bloggers frequently quote e-mails from members of the military that support everything and anything George Bush and conservatives have ever done. (In fairness, I have seen the same thing on liberal blogs, but not to the same degree.) Just on the front page of The Corner, there are e-mails from people with some military connection here, here and here.

I'm not saying all e-mails from military people on blogs are fake - or even that some of them are. I don't know. (Specifically, I don't know at all whether the ones I linked to are fake - at least one is identified as from "a friend" so I'm pretty sure it's authentic.) The blogosphere should look into this.

Given this bit of information, I think I will have to put less stock in anonymous e-mails on blogs that support the bloggers' position. If G&G ever posts an e-mail from a soldier, I would hope our readers would apply the same scrutiny.