[Dick Holmes]

why in the world were sane people called upon to respond to this flyspeck anyway? How did the Gainesville pastor become such a world-bestriding figure?

The US mass media deserve some blame for this, but the real problem is the Arab media. Al-Arabiya TV was making this a big story back in July, and other muslim media ran with it, and there were already protests in Afghanistan and Indonesia before the story broke big here.

Petreus decided to comment on the story when asked by the WSJ reporter, and the US media took it and ran with it.

[dfwgator]

Petreus decided to comment on the story when asked by the WSJ reporter

Two words...two words in the English language, "No Comment".