When I was a kid in the fifties there were certain truths, truths that could never be questioned.

The Pope was God's representative on Earth and he should never be questioned even if he spent a lot of time wearing dresses and funny hats and carrying this staff that was too big to really act as a cane.

Communism was the bane of all mankind. It was a totally arian land where young children would report their parent's activities to the authorities.

If there could be a one party system, it must be the Democratic Party. Hubert Humphrey was the new Moses.  The republicans were the party of the rich and shameless.

You could only be a comedian if you were Jewish, Irish or Italian.

Like the other rules, the comedian rule was to be unquestioned.

I watch this Italian comic whenever I can. Like most other celebrities, I never remember his name.  He has this great routine. He does a dialogue that goes something like this:

Tom:    Bobby, why are you wearing that ugly jacket. And what were you doing with MY     SISTER last night and where is that 30 bucks you owe me?

Bobby: Tommy, you are nothing but a goddamnable lying sack of sh... although I do no mean that in a bad way and your sister could be mistaken for a dairy cow ...and I really do not mean that to be taken in any malevolent manner and what 30 bucks are you talking about anyway? If brains were oatmeal, your cranium would not hold enough sustenance to keep an ant busy for an hour although I mean this in only the most positive light.   And further, your mother looks like a hooker who could not work on the street because  no one wants his 66 olds tainted by the odor; now I don't really mean all this in a bad  way Tommy so don't take any of this the wrong manner, take it in the manner in which it is offered.

And now it really is time for oddball. I mean some real oddballs, as we examine one more of the


                CANONS OF ETHICS IN THE WEBNETBLOGOSPHERE:

                         THE CASE OF THE AD HOMINEM ATTACK


8. Be courteous. There will be moments of passion when things are said in anger. If you must attack, target the idea or the opinion -- but NEVER the person. Personal attacks are useless, tend to escalate hostilities and ruin the reading experience for everyone else. Such comments, even if isolated, are subject to deletion. An ongoing pattern of persistent violations will result in blocked access.

We again must thank old Craig Crawford and Trail Mix as we begin to examine this universal rule of decorum in the Netwebblogosphere. Let us take some examples from recent comments at TPMC. We will start with Face in the Crowd who recently made this comment on a blog appearing at our café. The blogger does not appear to like our New President nor Jewish people nor others of a different color than him.  Face took a scientific approach to this perspective:


"You nice folk go on talking, I'll deal with xxxx DICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEAD DICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEAD DICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEAD DICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEAD DICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEADDICKHEAD

Now some may think that this is an attack at the personage, so to speak of this unnamed blogger.

But in the outer world, there is an outer world out there you know. I mean sometimes I go to the grocery store and the tobacco store and other places of business. There are people driving cars on the roads and everything. In fact, I just found out there are 41 senators in the repub party.  Spector from Penn is considering running as an independent but caucusing with the repubs in 2010. He said he wants to be more like Liberman. What a model to follow. At any rate how do some politicians fare with this rule in the blog:

"Follow the Japanese model... resign, or go commit suicide."

-- Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), quoted by the Washington Post, on AIG executives who took bonuses despite a massive government bailout.

An aide later explained the senator does not actually want executives to kill themselves.
(Thanks to Taegan Goddard)
 
Well, here is an example of handling the ad personam argument that my Italian comic would admire.  What Grassley appears to be saying is:


Go and kill yourselves immediately, but I do not mean this in a bad way.

Now if Face would have cleared up his comment like this, he would have been within the rules as defined by Grassley.


DICKHEAD, DICKHEAD, DICKHEAD...of course I do not mean this in a bad way.   


But let us take a look at rush, my favorite limbo or limbog or however he spells his name. Here is a man who knows what ad personam really means.

 Limbaugh is "sure" threats to AIG execs were made by "deranged leftists from the Democrat blogs" because "they're the ones that hate capitalists" Media Matters.

Now all rush had to say was that all critics of the bonuses are deranged leftists from Democratic Blogs who hate capitalists, but I do not mean that in a bad way.  And then everything would have been ok. The following is right from Media Matters.


    * Responding to a Reuters report on a University of Chicago study that found that "a majority of young blacks feel alienated form today's government," Limbaugh asserted on February 5, 2007: "Why would that be? The government's been taking care of them their whole lives."

Again, all rush would have had to do was add a sentence at the end like: But I did not mean that in a bad way.

    * Discussing Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) speech following her election as the country's first female speaker of the House, Limbaugh stated on January 5, 2007: "[L]ook at Ms. Pelosi. Why, she can multitask. She can breastfeed, she can clip her toenails, she can direct the House, all while the kids are sitting on her lap at the same time."

Again: but I did not mean that in a bad way.

    * Limbaugh has made numerous controversial remarks about women, including frequently referring to feminists as "feminazis." For example, on the November 30, 2006, edition of his radio show, Limbaugh proclaimed: My "cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life" because his pet cat "comes to me when she wants to be fed," and "[s]he's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually [a] very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it."

Finally he should have ended with: I did not mean that in a bad way.

And only just recently, rush has wondered why some women are mad at him. I mean he has 100 million dollars, and mansions, a millions of people listen to him and he even shows them
his Viagra from time to time. What more would a woman want?

We must all see how best to incorporate Canon #8 into our everyday lives and I welcome your ideas.

No cats were harmed in the making of this blog. Oh, and please keep your comments under 75,000 characters.