Eric Alterman | The Nation

Hello Altercators, old and new. LTC Bob here, just checking in to thenew place.

All this Altercation moving around these past few years really has notbugged me too much. The reason is fairly obvious if you know who I am,or perhaps more specifically, what I am. Among other things (writer,father, historian, husband, singer-of-bad-songs, university professor),I am a professional US Army infantry officer, and I have been for almosttwenty years now. That's what that little "LTC" in front of my namemeans. Iam a Lieutenant Colonel, and that is the way that the Army abbreviatesthat rank.** This matters, you see, because be it peace or war, wesoldiers are America's gypsies. Indeed, by the time my oldest daughterwas nine years old she had lived in Hawaii, Kentucky, Texas, Ohio, NewYork, and was in the midst of moving to her sixth state, Virginia. Thatis just the way it is for Soldiers and their families. Packing up andmoving is so much a part of the experience that it ceases to be uniquein any way. So one more Altercation jump really does not make too muchof a difference on this end, my motivation remains the same.

So here we are again.... Welcome to Altercation, 3.0. We began back inMay 2002, when, Joan Connell, then the opinion editor of MSNBC.com, nowonline editor here at The Nation, asked me to create what would be thefirst blog created for and sponsored by a mainstream media organization.It rested there until September 2006, when it moved to Media Matters forAmerica, where, again, we stayed for a while, before packing up at theend of 2008 and landing here.

For those of you keeping score, that's more than six and a half years ofdaily blogging. And for those of you who are not keeping score at home,well, I am. And I'm tired. And even though I've been known to lean onthe weekly Pierce here, the occasional Lt. Col Bob there, Siva, everyonce in a while, and George Zornick more and more, of late, I'm tired.This blog is going to be an intermittent one, rather than a daily one,though I think you can probably depend on Thursdays and Fridays.