Great Moments in Statesmanship

On Tuesday, the New York Times printed a call for public civility from recently defeated Congressman Paul Kanjorski, the Democrat from Pennsylvania who in late October, called for the Republican candidate for governor of Florida to be shot:

“That Scott down there that’s running for governor of Florida,” Mr. Kanjorski said. “Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him [sic] and shoot him.

Not to be outdone, the Washington Post printed a call for public civility from the former Democratic candidate for the President of the United States…Al Sharpton(!), with a headline titled, “In MLK’s honor, let’s strive for dialogue that’s passionate but not poisonous.”

Because Al’s entire career has been a triumph of understated discourse:

And speaking of understated discourse (not to mention deja vu), note the cartoon that the Post chose to accompany Sharpton’s op-ed:

Now that’s mass with class. Or as Patterico tweeted last night, “The NYT & WaPo are now doing performance art. Which will get to run the column on healing by Fred Phelps?”