“It’s nothing to laugh at, sir.”
-Tim O’Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home
Richard Cohen inadvertantly poked a bear this week. A self-professed bear, that is. One that goes by the name of Andrew Sullivan.

“In the new James Bond movie, ‘Skyfall,’ Daniel Craig takes off his shirt and examines his wounds,” writes Cohen in the Washington Post. “There appear to be two of them — small holes on his skin from bullets fired at the beginning of the movie. He touches his wounds and winces. So do I. Bond is in pain from his wounds. I am in pain from all the hours he has spent in the gym.”
Sullivan’s response is, in one post, everything I love and hate about him. It’s sharp and insightful while surprisingly obtuse. It’s pointlessly polemical and (hate the word, but lo here I am writing a response) provocative. And it’s a complete mess from the opening line: