What would Miss Pauline say?

All too often when folks have run out of facts, reason or a willingness to compromise they get frustrated and then it gets personal and ugly. Such was certainly the case last month when the Al Gore followers came face to face with the facts of their leader's own personal carbon footprint.

You'll remember that the Tennessee Center for Policy Research dared to make a few simple phone calls (the kind many of us have made before purchasing a home) asking about the energy use at the Gore home in Nashville's Belle Meade community. Yes, we knew he was living well--but we didn't know how well. Turns out while scaring us with his own version of the health of the planet and how we could reduce our impact on it he was using twice the electricity in a month than the average American uses in an entire year. Even comparing his use to his near neighbor's revealed an astonishingly high energy use. THAT was certainly an inconvenient truth.

Angry and apparently unhinged followers immediately rallied the troops and phones lines lit up and e-mail in boxes at TCPR filled immediately with vitriolic and hateful messages. Much of it almost too much to read even when it's edited as it is in this Deroy Murdock piece (consider yourself warned.) Deroy writes:

Such anti-intellectual intimidation reflects the high-octane hate that fuels so much Leftist discourse. Rather than simply argue that Johnson, Williams, and their colleagues are ecologically misguided or misinformed, these bullies call them barefoot, same-sex-loving, Winchester-wielding whores and evangel-yokels. Remember this whenever liberals crow about diversity, tolerance, and open-mindedness.

Deroy names names too. I hope those names come up the next time someone googles them. Folks need a heads up about the sort of people they are. It's one thing to disagree--it is entirely out of line to make death threats and say the things that these people said. None of us in the public square should have to fear for our lives because we disagree about policy or the message.

From what I've read about her, I believe Al Gore's mom would have expected certain gentlemanly behavior from her southern son. One of the more charming things about moving to Nashville was meeting southern gentlemen. They treated women well and appreciated and relied on our strengths. It may be a good idea for Al Gore to walk in that old fashioned grace and make a public apology for the abuse given and direct followers to never repeat the behavior on his behalf. It wouldn't hurt to send over a big bouquet of spring flowers to the TCPR staff. After this abuse their spirits look a bit like their under renovation office. Both could use the pick me up.