Thank you! No, I don’t write for a living, and I can already see a couple places I should have clarified which “he” I was referring to in order to avoid confusion during the time both men were on the bus. Oh well. But I don’t intend to prod anyone with “what would you have done.” I mean, what CAN you do to a man in his mid-80’s? I don’t have the heart to tear up an old man, even a disgusting one. I was just making an observation, because I have met his type again and again. They are generally in the entertainment business or academia, and they are just loathsome.
I think there’s definitely a lot of asking the reader about how they would have handled it. I would throw out the blanket-statement that liberals tend to be much more in-you-face and will interject themselves into a conversation or attempt to justify their beliefs out loud more so than a conservative. Your anecdotal experience speaks to this, as you, a presumably staunch conservative (you do have a FreeRepublic.com account!) held your tongue while our octogenarian protagonist invited himself to remove all doubt of his idiocy.
Remember, only 21% of the people identify themselves as liberal (a stat I heard just this week during a radio show segment about the OWS crowd). That leaves a whole lotta people who aren’t.
This 79% would have been readily identifiable on the bus as their cringing faces would have matched your fellow young co-rider.