Simon must have at last caught a glimpse of what we once and future lefties saw in early 2000 when Bush went to Bob Jones University, namely how easily Bush can turn against a minoritized culture if it makes immediate political gain possible. Boifromtroy if he's still Republican by Election Day will undoubtably require even more therapy to rationalize how he can remain part of the party whose only real platform point on homosexuality is to watch them all die off.

I'd say Simon's credentials are suspect, when it comes to civility. The last time I viewed his site, he had just posted a long message advertising his decision to label critics of President Bush's Iraq policies "pro-fascist."

Based on what I've seen, that's a fairly mild example of the the rhetoric that this minor celebrity and his syncophants post on the site, which features plenty of emotion-driven bombast but very little reasoned analysis, and where opponents of the war are routinely derided in the most contemptuous terms.

I'm glad for Roger that his new friends were gentle with him on the issue of gay marriages, but to be frank, his site is not where I'd look for consistently reasonable discussions of any issue.

But still, it was really charitable of him to think of us as civilized for once, don't you think?