Well, it's Friday, which means it's time to look in the old Democrats.com mailbag and see what conservative Nobel Laureate or general nutcase tries to give me my comeuppance this week.

The piece I wrote this week about Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy attending the funeral of a Massachusetts soldier killed in Iraq really brought the nuts out of the can.

Here's Mr. "V" who writes:

I found the pictures of kerry [sic] and kennedy [sic] at the grave of a soldier completely disgusting. Why?.. Kennedy and Kerry have quoted [sic] on Iraq for years.. and on WMD. They have voted for this war and entirely pretended Bush made it up. Do you have a fair bone in your body? You talk about honesty? How about trying to truly put a post on a democrats.com about the democrat quotes on wmd from 1993 through 2003?

Funny how what they said...matches what Bush said. Who came first? Who truly lied to who? [sic] Democrats stayed entirely consistant [sic] with their wmd, iraqi [sic] danger threat for years... Bush did not change their mind... Nothing changed according to their quotes. So where do people like you get off pretending international intelligence didn't say the same thing? And democrats? Why are you the true deceiver in this and not leveling with people? For power?.. I hope you're happy seeing Kerry and Kennedy politicize funerals... which they voted for.. and also worked hard to NOT support the troops or mission they voted for.

Remember Kerry saying once the war starts he will shutup, [sic] because he doesn't want soldiers hearing him in foxholes?.. Well, he didn't shutup [sic].. and he didn't stop pretending he didn't have a record on wmd quotes. The soldiers hear him well, so do the enemy. Way to go Bob..

No idea how you sleep.

To which I reply:

Dear V-man;

I normally don't respond to people who write with the same tired, old Republican talking points about Democrats "supporting the war" and people like Kerry "politicizing" attending military funerals -- even though the press wasn't invited and Kerry made no mention of it himself. But in your case, I'll make an exception and respond because you do raise a very interesting question.

How do I sleep at night?

Well, usually on my side, but occasionally on my back if my leg is acting up from an old military injury. I usually sleep pretty soundly -- and I really appreciate you asking, by the way -- but I sometimes do wake up with troubling thoughts about having a president who lied our country into a war and who has managed to convince a tiny, moronic segment of our population that, despite our nation's creed, any form of dissent is suddenly profoundly unpatriotic.

I usually take some time to read a few pages of the 9/11 Commission Report, which makes me feel better because I then get confirmation of how incredibly uninformed that tiny, Kool-Aid-drunk percentage of America is.

Sometimes I awaken with the fear that I'm too mean to the right-wingers who send me nonsense in e-mails… That it isn’t right for me to make fun of people who already struggle with an intelligence deficit every day, have only Fox News as their sole source of "information" and that I may simply be cruel to hold them up to such ridicule every Friday.

But then I realize that what awakened me was me giggling in my sleep.

Hope that answers your question.

Bob

Tune in next time for another edition of the Friday Fruitcakes. And, for you hateful, self-loathing Republicans – keep those cards, letter and e-mails coming.

You can reach Bob Geiger at geiger.bob@gmail.com