Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton has been quite clear about his disdain for what he see as the increased name-calling in American politics, and specifically a demeaning type of hateful rhetoric.

Last summer, the ombudsman noted the rise in “distasteful” emails he was getting about Obama:

They almost invariably use the “N” word for African Americans. Others use mocking shuck-and-jive language to portray Obama lazy, evasive and sexually insatiable.

Pexton suggested “journalists should report divisive, extreme language used by politicians, pundits and even e-mailers,” and that sometimes he responds to profane emailers by telling them their “behavior is uncalled-for and offensive.”

The same subject seemed to return in Pexton's column yesterday, which opened with him providing a lengthy example of the type of conservative attacks he often receives:

When President Obama has a bad day, or more specifically, on days when the economic news has been bad, I get a slew of feedback from conservative readers that go like this:

“See, you liberal media nincompoops, this is all your fault, you treated Obama like a saint when he was running in 2007 and 2008 and you didn't vet him, investigate him, report on him skeptically. You were so fawning (and adoring of his blackness), you missed that he was a (pick your adjective), radical, socialist, Muslim, inexperienced, dangerous, corrupt, weak Chicago politician with no track record of accomplishment, whose only talent is giving speeches.”

Those e-mails usually employ much harsher language, and some are filled with expletives.

This was precisely the kind of small-minded hate rhetoric that Pexton called out last year and urged fellow journalists to do the same. But instead of denouncing it this time, Pexton did the opposite: He used the name-calling about Obama's “blackness” and supposed “Muslim” faith as a legitimate jumping off point to analyze the Post's coverage of Obama and to urge the paper to be more critical of the president. (Much to the delight of far-right websites.)

Media Matters has spent the last three years documenting the increasingly unhinged and unapologetic right-wing media attacks on Obama (and his wife) that long ago crossed over every conceivable line of common sense and decency. And Pexton was right last year to highlight the unseemly trend among Obama detractors, and to urge others to denounce it.

That made Pexton's decision in Sunday's column to treat right-wing Obama hate language as a form of legitimate critique, and the type worthy of detailed response from the Washington Post, all the most distressing.