Throughout her long blog life, SOS has insisted that emotion is argument’s enemy.  Of course, she has a particular variety of emotionality in mind, one she’d call preening vehemence.  Here’s an example — an opinion piece in The Savannah Morning News.

Sometimes I just don’t understand women.  [Okay.]

Because I am a woman, you would think I would know how we think, and act [This certainly doesn't follow, but okay.], and so did I until I watched disgraced Detroit mayor Kwame Kirkpatrick and his wife during his televised “apology” after his affair was revealed.  [It was an apology, not an "apology."  Her quotation marks merely signal, early in her effort to win you over, a sneering adolescent irony.  Bad move.]

After Kwame lied under oath about the affair by stating, “I did not have sex with that woman,” (hmmm , sound familiar?)  [The writer compounds the sin of snarky quotation marks with childish parenthetical sarcasm.]  the 10,000 or so x-rated text messages that he sent to one of his top female aides were discovered and displayed for all the world to see.  [all the world to see is a cliche.]

But what did his wife do? She sat calmly next to him during his apology, and then on cue she took his hand, looked into the camera and said, “I am angry; I am hurt, and I am disappointed, but there is no question that I love my husband.”  [Her tone's too angry, but okay.]

HUHHH??? [Gevalt.]

So let me get this straight. [Drop this sentence.] Her husband lied to her, lied to the city, lied under oath, sent some other broad [broad is good.] 300 love/sex [Choose one of these.  Times being what they are, sex works better.] text messages A DAY [Dump the caps.] and she pledged her undying love for him?

I just don’t get it.  [Laying it on way too thick.   The argument's not going to make it on the force of your outraged incredulity.]

Why is it that so many high-profile women stay with men who constantly cheat on them? Why do so many relatively [Drop relatively.]  intelligent women choose to stay with philandering losers whose idea of monogamy is having one mistress at a time?  [That doesn't sound like a loser to me.  Sounds like a winner.]  If you ask me, Mrs. Kirkpatrick needs to do two things: pimp slap her husband, and then call a divorce lawyer.  [pimp slap's fun, but there's a serious content problem here.  We live in the real world, where love and marriage are complicated matters, for people in public as well as private life.  We know that infidelity's rampant, and cinematically satisfying gestures in the face of it untrue to most people's experience.]

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read, “Vote for Monica Lewinsky’s Ex-Boyfriend’s Wife for President in 2008.” Can you believe that?  [Empty histrionics.] It’s sad, but the reality is when ladies, especially high profile ladies, stay with their trampy husbands it sends a message that quite frankly I don’t appreciate. [quite frankly I don't appreciate is prissy teaparty language; if your reader hasn't already fled your self-aggrandizing indignation, she's probably, with this phrase,  headed for the exits.]

I don’t view a woman who consistently puts up with her husband’s infidelities as a “strong woman.” [Drop consistently, and dump the quotation marks.] It’s quite the contrary. [Drop this sentence.] Only a woman with low self-esteem [Vile psychojargon.  Choke it in its crib.] would subject herself to constant [Drop constant.  As with many overheated writers, she's fire-breathing redundant intensifiers -- consistently, constant...] humiliation and disrespect by the man who vowed to “forsake all others.”  [Quotation marks a mile a minute here.]

I understand that we should forgive, but forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. If someone is truly sorry for his or her behavior then the behavior will cease. However, if a person continues to repeat the behavior that he or she has apologized for, then that person is NOT REMORSEFUL.  [Barney the Dinosaur language, complete with big letters so we don't miss anything.]

I know there are those who will say that these men have a “sexual addiction” and need “treatment,” which I agree with because they would need treatment after suffering the concussion, ruptured spleen and broken ribs they would receive from their “post confession” beat down.  [Sad, sad sentence.  Could be funny, couldn't it?  The core idea's amusing.   But she's pummeled it to a pulp with quotation marks.]

Anyone who misuses his or her body, whether sexually or with drugs, does not love himself or herself enough to know that he or she is more precious than the behavior that is being exhibited. If a person doesn’t love himself or herself, that person can’t be expected to truly love the person he or she is with.  [Anyone who thinks simplistic thinking plus five varieties of his or her in two sentences is getting her anywhere can't be expected to be taken seriously as a writer.]

I understand how difficult it can be to leave someone after loving that person and vowing to stay with that person “till death do you part,” but I also understand that sometimes, the love that we, as women, have for ourselves must supersede the love we have for that man.

It is especially important, if women have daughters because daughters must not get the impression that infidelity will be tolerated. We must love ourselves enough to know that as ladies we deserve the love and respect of a real man, and not a tramp.