It's Wednesday, so Joanne must be terribly, terribly hurt.

It's not like I want to drag this out any further but, really, there's one point I want to make before moving on and returning to the world of the clinically sane.

If you go back through the last few posts regarding the batshit crazy "Joanne" of the Blogging Tories and check out those original posts of hers (those would be the ones she didn't delete out of sheer embarrassment), you might get the impression that she and most of her loyal, barking fans are incredibly sensitive to intemperate language and it's just painful to their delicate sensibilities and, why, they never, I mean, really, and on and on and tediously on.

All of that is, of course, complete horseshit. It's an act, and nothing more. Consider that these complaints about lack of civility are from people who make an entire career out of writing offensive and insulting posts about gays and immigrants, and referring to people as "shrieking moonbats" and "leftards" and "Lieberals" and "Fiberals", etc, etc. Funny ... that sort of thing doesn't seem to bother them in the least. So what's really going on here? I'm so glad you asked.

As I said, it's all an act. The point of posting such moronic stupidity (such as what Joanne posted) is precisely to get that kind of reaction. For all their talk about dialogue, the last thing the right-wing trogs like Joanne want is to get into a conversation. So their strategy is painfully simple -- post such idiotic rubbish that the immediate knee-jerk reaction is something along the lines of, "Jesus Christ, are you totally fucking retarded or what?" At which point, naturally, you dismiss the complainant as an uncivil, unhinged, deranged moonbat whose actual points can be summarily dismissed, regardless of their merits.

It's a terrific plan, isn't it? It not only allows you to avoid any meaningful discussion of why you're a raving idiot, but it gives all your commenters the satisfaction of being able to sit around and sanctimoniously "Tut tut" about all those nasty leftards and how they can't keep a civil tongue in their head because, as we all know, if someone describes you as an ignorant, bigoted dumbass, well, that's only because they're rude and not because they might, you know, have a point or anything.

I'm sorry -- you need proof? Why not slowly peruse the comments section here to see Joanne and her fans, sitting around patronizingly sighing about how they're the reasonable ones. Yeah, it is a sight, isn't it? And in all of that, not one line of addressing Joanne's original horseshit because, quite simply, that's not the issue anymore, is it? Now it's all about personalities, which is exactly what Joanne was after. After all, why discuss actual issues when you can play the delicate martyr card?

Or, as I was tempted to write initially -- Shorter Joanne: "I'm hurt and offended and insulted by the uncivil and demeaning language and ... ooooooooooo ... traffic!"

AFTERSNARK: If you need a second data point ...