Dear Mick:

I’ve been thinking about it, and you’re right: Pesky should be ashamed of himself for being so mean to you. And such language!

I know, I know: I should have awakened to the obviousness of this before now and said something. But, you see, I spend a certain amount of my time working at close range to him. And you have no idea how clever and fiendishly mesmeric he can be! (See picture.)

The worst thing about him? He habitually practices irony, that bane to honest, literal-minded folk. Irony! I’ve tried to get him to stop, and he just won’t.

And on this Glen Beck thing: You’re right about that, too. I should never have butted in. Luckily, there’s a simple way to refute the cynics (did you know that the word “cynic” comes from Latin roots, meaning to gnaw at flesh? Betcha did).

Clearly, several of us — notoriously Pesky and, more incidentally and innocently, myself — mistook what Glen was saying and actually took him to be comparing Hitler’s genocide against the Jews to Gore’s sounding the alert against global warning. By setting us straight on that, you’re sort of concurring with us that such an idea would be crazy. So I’m glad you set us straight. In fact, we should thank you for it.

Thank you.

Now, I’m not real sure what Glen…I should say Mr. Beck, sorry, did mean, and, in our defense, I would say that we probably all got confused when the well-intentioned and undeniably brilliant and certainly very popular commentator made such a point of mentioning Hitler’s trying to turn the Jews into a world-wide enemy. (Like Gore’s trying to turn global warming into a world-wide nemesis, right?)

As a fair-minded person, you can see how we might get careless and screw up his intended analogy (which again, I’m sorry to say, I haven’t figured out 100 percent yet) and get it tangled up with the genocide that actually did occur, though we should probably all apologize for not understanding that Mr. Beck didn’t mean to summon up that specter or mean for Gore to be tainted with it.

What he meant was that what Gore really wants is world government, right? Which is something like Hitler’s trying to conquer the world? Am I getting close?

On behalf of all of us who didn’t get the point of Mr. Beck’s analogy (and maybe still don’t get all of it right), I apologize.

Oh, almost forgot my point: I said way back there that there’s a good way to confound the cynics (people like Pesky, foul-mouthed ironists like that; I’m with you on that now!). Since Mr. Beck DID mention Hitler and the Jews,, then all it would take would be for you to get Jewish people to come forward and say something approving about Mr. Beck’s argument, maybe even help clarify it a little. Or who would second his basic comparison of Gore to Hitler. Even just a little.

I say that because it’s been my experience that the Jewish people themselves are the best and most reliable and most honest judges as to what forces and personalities in today’s world most remind them of the philosophy and the evils of Hitler’s regime. And the fact is, they aren’t tolerant at all (and who can blame them?) of people who try to misuse that horrific chapter in mankind’s history to make some self-serving point with it.

So, really, all you have to do is round up some Jewish people who will testify to the accuracy of Mr. Beck’s analogy. Or to Al Gore’s being like Hitler. Actually, just one will do. Just one.

And, by golly, that will cut Pesky’s water off. And all the other cynics, too.

Again, Mick, I am truly sorry for taking so long to grasp your point and to denounce my so-called friend Pesky, as you asked me to do. But you’ve got to admit, I’m now doing my best to be helpful. It’s really simple.

Just find one.