It seems Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank isn't happy that I pointed out the absurdity of his claim that Democratic congressman Al Green made a “fascist salute” to Barack Obama during last night's speech. From Milbank's online discussion today:

Media Matters: Hey Dana, you did it! Media Matters isn't happy with your false moral equivalance. WaPo's Milbank: Dem. Rep. Green made “fascist salute” to Obama (MediaMatters, Sept. 10)

Dana Milbank: Excellent! After just 3 minutes as a hack for Barack I am back to being a right-wing stooge.

It's too bad about Media Matters. I'm sure Mr. Brock et al have some good points to make, but because they attack everybody for everything all the time, it winds up discrediting the good stuff they do and make it appear that they are just making noise.

It's too bad about the Washington Post. I'm sure* Mr. Milbank has some good points to make, but because he runs around calling Hillary Clinton a "bitch" and Nico Pitney a "dick" and accusing members of congress of making “fascist salutes” and dressing up in a smoking jacket to act out his sophomoric little skits (oh, wait: those were cancelled) and generally behaving like a not-particularly-bright thirteen-year-old, it winds up discrediting the good stuff the Post does.

Anyway, I'm glad Milbank responded, because it gives me an opportunity to address something I left out of my post last night: Milbank's column was a complaint about the decline in civility in public discourse:

As President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, the nation's rapidly deteriorating discourse hit yet another low.

...

The national debate, already raw for years, had coarsened over the summer

And so on.

Yeah, that's right: Dana Milbank, whose dress-up skit show was cancelled after he called the Secretary of State a “bitch,” was handing out lessons in civility. And now he's offering lessons in being taken seriously. I'll pass.

* No, not really.