<<All right , you deserved the barb even if I didn't know it at the time.>>
Not really. The barb is deserved by the person who introduces the topic, which I would never have done. I believe in AA and wouldn't do anything to discredit it, even if it meant losing an argument. However, once the topic is introduced, the idea's on the table - - I can't lie and say it played no part, and I can't simply agree and say that AA's bad. I did the only honest thing I could do - - acknowledge that AA has its negative results and that Clarence Thomas is obviously one of them and at the same time defend AA by pointing out that on the whole the positives outweigh the negatives. So I don't think I deserved the barb after all.