Jeeves! My Slippers, Please.

Last month, I had a freelance piece in Playboy on the SWAT phenomenon (it's not online yet).  It was a short piece with a few bullet-point examples, and some brief background.

This fellow apparently didn't like it much, citing it I guess as proof for his theory that weenie liberal men like me are hellbent on neutering Western society of its manliness.  More hilarious is the mental picture he has of me:

While Mr. Balko sits safely in his tony Upper West Side of Manhattan digs puffing on some thai and bemoaning the plight of those persecuted by the gestapo Police SWAT teams to the members of his Mulatto studies literature club, the very men he defames are ensuring the continuance of his existence through their thankless work- protecting the good people of this country from the barbarians within our gates.

In the article Mr. Balko uses a grand total of six examples of SWAT raids that resulted in deaths instead of arrests between the years of 2001 and 2006. He also cites the incredible rise of the use of SWAT teams, 1300% since 1980, stating that on average SWAT teams are used 110 times a day. Given the rise in SWAT action, the real story should be the lack of examples Mr. Balko is able to present in this article to prove his claims that "We the people" are under siege by the menace of "paramilitary" police units.

His mistaking a word-count limit for a lack of suitable examples aside, let me just say that as a white-bread, corn-fed Hoosier who currently rents a 2-bedroom row house in an average-income  Alexandria, Virginia neighborhood, color me flattered to be called a Rob Roy-sipping, Yacht-clubbing elitist!

Gotta' go, now.  Heff's flying me and 'Lec (that's what I call Alec Baldwin) to the Mansion for a midnight grotto party.  I'll tell Drew Carey y'all said hi.