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# Point, counterpoint
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/point-counterpoint-editor/
- Published: 2008-06-13T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T19:54:07.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Tim Dillenbeck*

RE: Steve Breen’s column “Criticism over military service rings hollow,” page 5, May 28, 2008.

Mr. Breen: In my last letter (May 16), a reply to your incessant Obama bashing, I wrote: “Sometimes you just want to tie someone to a chair, gag them, shut the door and walk away. You wrestle with that sentiment every time you hear neo-Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan spreading their hate and intolerance.”

In your recent column you claimed I “…had threatened \[you\] personally with physical violence,” “That a white man can still threaten … a man of color, a U.S. Navy vet and career civil servant ….”

Man of color? What? Red, white and blue? Your flag-waving credentials don’t impress me, Breen. Truth is, you are no more a patriot than I. You seem to think liberals and Democrats are incapable of honor and loyalty to country. Get off your partisan high horse and grow up.

The fact that you misconstrued and represented my illustrative literary construct as a “threat of physical violence” to you and “every veteran” speaks for itself. That blind, unthinking, paranoid misinterpretation belies the same state of mind that gets this country into unnecessary wars and widens further the partisan divide.

I believe your column exemplifies perfectly that which has poisoned and destroyed legitimate public debate in this country, and I, for one, find it tawdry and borderline immoral. I’m tired of it. It cheapens the Daily Press to offer it without counterpoint.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 13, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/061308.pdf?ref=smdp.com)