After these heated exchanges, it is time for us to ask, just as we did right after the SPLC crisis, “What just happened?”

One of the comments to my last article was “I do have a problem with the man who convinced me that the situation was not hopeless just walking away.”

Despite what I said, in the real world, that is the least of your problems. One of my big problems is that you know very well that I will die loyal, actively loyal, to our race. Being taken for granted makes it too easy to ignore any discipline I try to impose.

Having been taken for granted, I am also supposed to be “nice.”

NICE!?

Nice in BUGS, where our idea of being pleasant is charging into a site where a pleasant discussion of Bugs Bunny cartoons is going on and bombarding it with hard politics?

I am NOT trying to train our people to be NICE. This is gladiator training, where we take people from “nice” membership outfits and turn them into interrogators, attackers, the guys that scare the lions.

The good thing that seems to have come out of this fit of mine is that we MAY get back to those of you with experience calling down the ones who go sailing away on their own verbiage.

I SAW us going national. Seeing a forward movement, as a good officer, I looked at what we had blasted away and what they were falling back on. After all these years!

They have dropped back from “racism” and hide behind “Hate” and “Diversity.”

So we go after Hate and Diversity, right?

No, though the reports desperately avoided “Racism,” commenters said it meant nothing.

Other commenters say they already “took care of that” by denouncing Diversity before.

Of course I blew my stack!

I have been dealing with stumbling blind crap like that for almost twenty years, and here it is AGAIN.

HERE!

OK, status quo ante, all is as it was.

Except that maybe, just maybe, you will consider my strategy before you you repeat all the SF crap.

Yes, we can win, but we have to stop repeating the same mistakes in different language.

There is no hidden meaning here. It is just advice to those on my side.

I got  paid to be an interrogator. If you ask someone what an interrogator does, he will normally respond with what the verb means in Latin:  Ask questions.

But a moment’s thought will tell you that asking is not a GOOD interrogator’s main job, despite the title.

From suspects to committee hearings, “Get Whitaker in on it” was not only because of what Whitaker might ASK, but what Whitaker might HEAR.

In one  hearing, a big one on a BATF proposal that ammunition be registered, my boss was there as Ranking Member and I was standing behind him, whispering in his ear like Beelzebub.

This is the kind of hearing most people see, the congressman with the staffer whispering to him.

Most real hearings feature an absence of congressmen, staff doing the questioning, but these are not televised.

This time not only was John there, but Bob had to be standing right behind  him. Bob had to be “in on it.”

John asked, I LISTENED. This is one of the clearest examples of why they wanted Bob in on it and what an interrogator does.

At one point John asked the BATF witness the standard question about whether this ammunition registration was part of a plan leading to registration of all guns.

A note: Both congressmen and even senior staffers are sometimes witnesses at committees and we are always preparing to deal with questions from all sides. We know what “prepping,” preparing, consists of.

I stepped up behind John and whispered, “They aren’t prepped on that question. Sic em, Boss.”

He sicced em. He asked that witness eight more times the same question, “Is this a first step to national gun registration?”

Then John put him on oath. It was not a formal investigation so the witnesses had not been sworn. John demanded that, given the runaround he had been given, that question would be answered under oath, i.e., at risk of  perjury.

Sure enough, the answers, which had been runaround enough before, completely changed under oath.

So, “Bob was  in on it” and all anybody saw was me step up for one short whisper.

Even in normal conversation it also makes a difference HOW you listen.

One who replies instantly is considered a featherhead.

And often IS.

I was not there as an extra mouth, but as an extra pair or EARS.

The BATF Brigade would have been infinitely more comfortable if John had simply repeated a question I had whispered in his ear.

They got very uncomfortable as John clearly ran my observation through his mind and contemplated HOW to “sic ’em.”

Most of my best advice gets lost in quick responses.

For example, much of my best counsel comes from rethinking basics. But everybody has heard the basics many times and has something he routinely says when one is mentioned.

That response takes up the crucial seconds during which he could have thought WHY I brought that particular basic up and what my point was. A quick response means that “Whitaker is not in on it.”

More generally, how quickly you answer is as much a part of your conversation as what you say. You notice the guy who has nothing to say.

Most people who have nothing to say, have nothing to say.

You also notice the featherhead who instantly gives an “answer” he would have given had you never been born.

And you notice the person who is listening. He is not the Cone of Silence who might be trying to look Silent and Wise. He is the guy who runs what you said through his brain and THEN has a comment.

One of the first things an interrogator learns is to sort out the OTHER listeners from the featherheads and the Owl Brains.

The person who is listening can make you nervous, but he also makes talking worth while.