AM2. Discuss and explain.

If anyone ever wants to carry out an academic study into the origins of irrational obsession, they could do far worse than to try to track down that most enigmatic frequenter of Scottish political message-boards (and now the blogosphere), the one, the only Mr AM2. Although he now blogs under the moniker 'Scottish Unionist', I find it impossible to think of him by any other name than the one he used in his days as an almost impossibly relentless one-man anti-SNP propaganda machine on the Scotsman and Herald boards. And proof of his enduring legend is that almost everyone else who encountered him in those days has the same problem - virtually every comment on his blog is something along the lines of "AM2 is George Foulkes", "AM2 is deluded" or "AM2, you are a fool".

Well, he's not a fool but he is fixated, and in an utterly incomprehensible way. For although his mission in life is to undermine the SNP, his preferred method of doing this is not to take on the SNP leadership directly, or even known party activists. Instead he sets out to relentlessly question the credibility, integrity and good character of the so-called 'Cybernats', the legions of internet scribes who support the SNP - who may or may not be party members, but even if they are would be highly unlikely to hold any position of importance or influence in the party. Take his latest offering tonight - he quotes a Cybernat as saying "the problem for the Welsh is that so many of their population nowadays are English and they want the status quo" and demands to know if other Cybernats would take the same view about English people living in Scotland. Well, some wouldn't, but perhaps some would - because those who are motivated to contribute to blogs or message-boards (regardless of political complexion) are disproportionately likely to express their views in a trenchant, colourful, provocative, outrageous manner. In much the same way you wouldn't have to search very far to find the odd utterly irrelevant Tory supporter on the internet who unwisely expresses patronising or discriminatory views about women or ethnic minorities. But what does this really amount to? You can almost sense AM2's virtually orgasmic satisfaction every time he catches a Cybernat out on a point like this, and so off he scurries to do some more close textual analysis of yet more Cybernat scribblings to get his next 'hit', to the point he seems more than content to devote a large part of his life to this singularly odd and superfluous endeavour. Each to his own I suppose, but I do fear for him - isn't he going to wake up one morning and think "yes I caught out Wardog and Subrosa and...so what?" Now catching out Alex Salmond would have been impressive!