Reasoned Debate, Left-Wing Style

Don't like the message? Want to disagree? Well, then just hit your opposition with your own fiery rhetoric. It seems that a couple of upstanding, young citizens in Oregon may have misconstrued that concept this past weekend.

Gene Scrutton, 50, said he was awakened about 1:30 a.m. by a neighbor who telephoned after he saw the 4-feet-by-8-feet McCain campaign sign in Scrutton's front yard on fire. The sign, which is mounted on 12-foot-long 4-by-4s, is about five feet from the home where Scrutton and his wife, Karen, have lived for 32 years.

Karen Scrutton, 50, was asleep in the room directly behind the sign and woke up when a burning bottle thrown at the sign hit one of the posts and set it on fire, he said. The devices were Pacifico beer bottles stuffed with gasoline-soaked rags, he said.

The neighbor saw a man trying to light the bottom of the sign on fire with a second burning device, he said. One of the men dropped a third, unlighted device and the two ran when the neighbor yelled, Scrutton said.

Two males in their mid-twenties, suspected of involvement in the incident, are in police custody.

Maybe they heard Obama back in September when he said, "I want you to argue with them and get in their face. ... You are my ambassadors."

USMC 9971 OUT