As a result of a message I received earlier today that I’ve decided, for now at least, not to publish, I’m putting this out there as a general policy statement of The Rittenhouse Review:

If you’re a public official or a public person of one sort or another, a regularly published member of the punditocracy, for example, with, say, a nationally syndicated column, and you don’t like something I’ve written about you here, feel free to send me an e-mail detailing or outlining your complaint, dissatisfaction, or disagreement.

Whatever you do, don’t ask your spouse or significant other to send me such a missive, and to the best of your ability, prevent him or her from doing so on his or her own.

No matter the tone -- hostile, nasty, plaintive, even pleading -- such third-party messages carry little weight around here, reflect poorly on the subject under discussion, and are, just in general, all-too-Vincent/McNulty-esque to enable the relevant party to maintain any credibility whatsoever, and you know you can do better than that, don’t you?

That’s all. For now anyway.

[Post-publication addendum: Oh, and by the way, apropos of absolutely nothing at all, and this really has no relevance to the above post, but I really have to ask, is Mona Charen the lamest, the stupidest, the most idiotic columnist on the scene today? I’m serious. Is she? Fittingly, Charen got her start, one I remember all too well, at National Review, back when it was the (hardee-har-har) “intellectual flagship” of the American conservative movement, before, that is, the magazine was dumbed downed still more by the numbskulls who these days regularly contribute to “The Corner.” What’s up with Bill Buckley lately anyway? Is he in a vegetative state about which no one has informed us? Anyone put a spoon under his nose recently? (Oh, please! Sit down, Leon. I thought that was all over.)]