"You gotta call 'em out on this stuff," freelance writer Michael T. Toole barked over the phone. Aw, jeez. Here I hadn't yet finished the third Diet Coke of the morning, and I was already letting myself be goaded into political slap-boxing.
I'd just told him about a couple of voice mails I'd gotten last week. "Gosh," the first one said, "you sound like a little Democratic girly man. I don't know if I want to leave a message for a little Democratic girly man. Little wee-wees. Just cry, OK? Go dig a hole and cry."
The second, which sounded like the same guy on a worse phone, went like this: "I go around the stores picking up all the Weeklies, and I throw 'em in the garbage. Because you're a Kerry fairy."
Click.
Well, ouch.
Not really, of course. Other than noting the guy's obvious self-esteem issues (the penile insecurity of the loaded phrase "little wee-wees," which also probably explains why he didn't leave his name), I laughed it off. My kids say worse when I don't relax their curfews, and a high tolerance for rotten tomatoes goes with being atop the masthead.
But Mike's is a good point. Why give creeps a free pass? It is gutless to leave such messages anonymously; it is typical of extremists to personalize their anger, even against people who haven't done anything to them; it is depressingly predictable for a certain kind of American to try quashing ideas he doesn't like instead of just ignoring them.
Nothing is gained, Mike insisted, by pretending that such people are harmless. They're not. If I don't think this guy will wait in the parking lot to kick my ass, I do believe he represents a grimy strain of the American character—censorious, self-righteous, prone to unreflective anger, perfectly willing to win at all costs. It's the same smeary mind-set that burps up Swift Boat Veterans for Truth or the document-fakers of Memogate.
You gotta call 'em out! "Force them to debate their cases on the facts," Mike insisted. "They always fail."
Mike, as you see, gets worked up about politics—he once offered to drive my sons to Canada should Bush reinstate the draft. (I'm keeping your number handy, Mike!) To keep his blood pressure in check, we try to assign him good nonpolitical pieces, like this week's feature on campy Vegas films (page 23).
As it happens, my caller ID recorded the crackpot's info. I Googled the number and got a name. I could've called, left my own hostile message. Might be fun! But I didn't. Not because of Democratic timidity or girly-man sissiness or an unwillingness to climb out of my crying hole. I just don't want to be a jerk.