Of incivility, public and private:

It may well have been going on longer than this, but I started to notice a type of behavior back in the 1990s: When there’s a lane closure impending on a street or highway, MOST people would join the merged traffic fairly early on, and proceed to wait the extra time it took to get through the congestion. But, there were always at least SEVERAL a**holes who, although they had an opportunity to merge early and wait it out like everyone else, would instead put the pedal to the metal, zoom to the front of the line and cut in.

It occurred to me that even these a**holes would never dare to behave in such boorish fashion in a less anonymous setting … say, a grocery store, where cutting in line can get you multiple dirty looks, a “Hey! Excuse me!” objection from a fellow shopper or even a reprimand and “Sorry, that person was in front of you” from the cashier.

The relative anonymity of the car seemed to embolden crassness that would never be tolerated in face-to-face interactions. (A lesson we see on the Internet every day, nowadays.)

So what are we to make of it when national recognition as a Constitutional Ignoramus and Juvenile First Class is no longer enough to keep a person’s worst, most boorish and inane behavior in check? When a person like Chris Matthews will confidently attach his name and reputation to such ideas as (a) it’s his “job” as a “journalist” to see that Obama succeeds in office, and (b) hey, let’s create a special exception to a 200+-year-old, Constitutionally-governed process for 44 because he’s so … so … special ?

It seems to me that the sheer brazenness of the yahoos (cultural and political) is something that exists only recently in American life. And that that is a very bad sign indeed. See: Giuliani’s “broken window” theory.

Or is my perception mistaken? Has the brazenness always been there and I am just recently starting to see it?