I always know when Andrew Sullivan links to one of my posts, because there is an immediate decline in manners accompanied by a notable uptick in ad hominem attacks and rude comments about bow-ties. No. 167 above is a representative specimen–“You are a moron. In a silly bow-tie.”–as is No. 198, which opens with the Demosthenean flourish “You bowtied twit.” Readers who wonder, as I do, at the power those little strips of silk have to enrage the politically correct may be interested in my reflection on the subject, occasioned by an earlier cataract of incontinent hysteria from those who attend Mr. Sullivan’s animadversions:

http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2008/04/15/announcing_the_society_for_the/

In any event, although the pathologist in me enjoys the hysteria, my inner rhetorician sighs at such lackluster philippic: really, chaps, you should be able to muster something more inventive in the way of abuse. It saddens me, too, to witness the occasional exhibition of insanity from the Right, exemplified by No. 231 above. Such intemperateness is neither amusing nor helpful, and I regret its occurrence.