Who is serious?

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In October of 1962 the world came perilously close "Nucular combat toe to toe withe the Rushkies" as Slim Pickens would describe the concept in Dr. Strangelove. President Kennedy and Secretary Khrushchev were exchanging letters and other types of communications. As it got more tense there came from Mr. Khrushchev two letters. One was hostile and one was conciliatory. According to The missiles of October Mr. Kennedy took the chance offered by Mr. Khrushchev and responded to the conciliatory one and ignored the hostile one.

I wonder if this might provide us with a way to measure how serious someone is. If Sarah Palin is constantly talking about Nancy Pelosi and death panels and ignoring the moderates, then perhaps she is not very serious about solving real problems. Similarly if, like Harry Reid, whenever you look to the right all you see are Tea Partiers, then maybe you are not very serious either.
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