Now here's a reader who's truly pissed off!

Tom got this email:

Subject: Your bankrupt command of the English language

Dear Sir,

Some time ago, I think shortly after it was published, I bought your book "The Pentagon's New Map".

I was enjoying it and respected your ideas until I got to page 174 and was astonished to find you using the crude phrase "pissing off"

I was utterly incensed and disgusted to find, in what I had assumed to be an intelligent book written by a professional, such gutter language. There is a place for such language but not in a book such as this for which I paid good money.

In my whole life of reading hundreds of intelligent books I have never encountered such unprofessional language.

Are you not capable of expressing yourself on a normal level?

Your book should have had a prominent warning "contains offensive language" so that intelligent people could avoid it.

I have completely lost all respect for your ideas and yourself and propose to read no further but throw your book in the trash where it and your ideas belong.

It has taken this long for my disgust to die down sufficiently to allow me to write calmly to you.

Yours in despair,

Neil in California

Tom says:

That is the silliest feedback I have ever received, but thanks anyway.

Another customer served ...

Comments

[evan maxwell]

Tom,

I think you pissed him off.....

[Russ Wilson]

Neil has clearly never had to communicate ideas in the DoD!

[J Canepa]

The expression "blue nose" may have originated when someone who was trying to shame somebody else did so by waiving his hands and sucking in his breath, so vigorously that his nose turned blue.

It would appear that Blue Nose Neil might have to little to do. So one could offer him the suggestion that make better use of his time and go scratch his ass.

BTW anyone know what Neil Bush is up to now?

[thaddeusphoenix]

Sounds like the CSPAN phone lines were all busy.

[CitSAR]

"Another customer served...", I guess that makes it a "McComment"...

Frankly, I find the once in a while departure to Pattonesque language refreshing and informative if not somewhat unique. It doesnt matter if I agree or not, but as Patton intended when his then language went gutter (today its just main street), we readers get A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING.

[Ryan]

you should have replied: "I truly apologize for the gutter language. I had no idea it would piss you off so much."

[Warren D. Miller]

Tom, if the note from 'Neil in California' is indeed "the silliest feedback [you've] ever received," well, methinks you were anesthetized by DOD to the extent that you're now brain-dead. I'm a Marine (1961-64), and I'm no prude.

But I think the 'gutter language' to which Neil refers is the right label. The use of it in a serious book with significant intellectual content merely undermines and debases your arguments. Such gutter language is also part of the hard-Left coarsening of U.S. society. It is not something which a bright and insightful professional such as you should be subsidizing by your participation.

Even if you were quoting someone, which you weren't, I think you could have conveyed the language without using it. If you can't, then you're not nearly as intelligent as I have heretofore believed. I believe that 'infuriating the Core' would have been a far better and more accurate characterization.

C'mon, man. Get off defense. You're a better man than your cheap-shot response suggests.

Semper Fi--

Warren MillerLexington, Va.

[Tom Mull]

Shame on you, you coprolaliac thing you =)

[robert sutton]

You're colloquial writing style has puzzled me as well Tom... In every brief i've seen you give, it takes less than 4 minutes for you to remind the audience that you went to harvard, so i'm guessing that you are certainly capable of writing in a more formal and scholarly way....so what gives? are you trying to make sure you that you aren't taken seriously by the mainstream so you don't get even more ridiculous emails? would it interfere with the the purity of your grand strategy? as if finding the categorical imperatives of grand strategy require you to avoid academia altogether? or could it have something to do with gearing your writing towards my generation (i was born in 1981)? i know you could do it, and in many peoples' eyes it would lend credibility to your theories, so why not do it? i seriously doubt that it is by accident, or because you're careless or anything of that sort...nope, there must be a good reason. care to fill us in?

[Sopwith]

So, Neil was actually so distressed by an affront to his sensibilities that he was unable to digest content vs style? Does it strike anyone that this is the sort of mental disconnect we're facing in extremism? Granted, this *is* the internet :)

[Elmer Humes]

Most prudes have a tough time seeing the forest through the trees. Tom you are a great communicator...keep it coming!

[Ross Kolton]

"...utterly incensed and disgusted...." ??? Issues! Sad

[Mark Denney]

Tom, I am pissed off that someone thinks there is some magic bar somewhere where "pissed off" defines the line between "oh so" intelligent and "the masses". What a pisser that people can't speak as they chose and let the results speak for themselves.

I'd say the resultant number of listeners you have is justification enough to continue using such "blue" phrases as "pissed off".

And if there are those that feel otherwise - well...let them, in oh so elegant and regal terms, explain their position while the rest of us get on with our lives.

Sincerely,

A concerned and Pissed off listener

[Glenn (Customer Service Experi]

Tom, I agree with former Marine Warren Miller above. (Although I think it has less to do with politics and everyting to do with your generation.)

You chose the "easier wrong" instead of the "harder right." I also do agree with another commenter that "Pattonesque language" has its appropriate uses. But probably not where you used it.

I'm a fan of yours, but your response to someone who disagrees with you disappoints me. I expected better.

You should apologize.

Whether you agree with that or not, I'll still be reading.

[Aaron B. Brown]

I think a refund is in order Tom, it's the least you can do after having so terribly disillusioned this obviously fragile person.

I would suppose this is a rather elderly conservative individual, the type of person who equates cussing with offenses like murder and rape, I'm always baffled by that type of morality.