Some good comments in the book club discussion this week on Andrew Bacevich's book, both by invited contributors and cafe denizens.  

It could be so much better if Michael Klare, Bacevich, and others would engage with us riffraff.  Evidently they can't be bothered. 

I've been at this place for awhile and a couple of years ago some of the denizens were, I thought, obnoxious to many of the invited contributors.  It left me at least somewhat sympathetic towards those who opted not to engage.  Anne-Marie Slaughter, I recall, took a heap of abuse, yet to her great credit she did engage frequently and civilly, with a degree of equanimity and class I suspect few of us in her position likely would have been able to muster.  Ikenberry rarely if ever replied to comments or questions.  Daalder--infrequently--and he treated very poorly by some.  Michael Lind would sometimes give at least as good as he got where he took umbrage. Lindsay I thought could at times be just as obnoxious as some of the disrespectful denizens.  Steve Clemons was, and is, a gentleman through and through, a class act. 

I don't see any nastiness coming from denizens in book club threads this week, nor lately in book club discussions.  So I am considerably less sympathetic than I once was to the invited contributors who do not engage, which frankly is most of them. 

I get the sense that the folks invited to contribute think of the folks who frequent this site as spectators at a sporting event--permitted to watch and listen in on the "real" action, but not as citizens who might possibly have a worthwhile thought or question worth their time.   

Maybe some time back we cafe denizens got a collective rep for too much bad behavior that at one time may have been justified but no longer seems to be, but that we're having trouble shaking.