You agreed to the claim,

"...our political mores demand vehement repudiation of petty acts of incivility (not all, but most) while tolerating and even approving of extremely consequential acts of indecency as long as they're advocated with superficial civility."

You agreed to this, but argued that we should be appalled that it is true.

And I agree with you, it's true, and it is a shame. However, what is the problem, and what can be done about it?

I agree with CurmudgeonlyTroll that yelling, "you're a liar," is rude and "...removes the possibility of civilized discussion." The political discussion shows which are made up almost entirely of yelling back and forth so no one can make a their position clear or understandable, reflects the show's intention to make debate emotional and disputes seemingly irresolvable.

I also agree that, even if one is lead to advocate the truly bizarre, like cannibalism, when participants address an issue, and engage in an argument, argumentation "...can still lead to the type of discussion where people realize their errors and find common ground..." and thus, resolve their disputes.

So, the problem is the legislature, as well as the culture, in general, does not insist on addressing issues, and putting up arguments, while also tolerating disruptions.

The question I have is whether this Wilson addressed a point that Obama was making, which he thought, for some good reason, needed to be exposed, and thought otherwise it would not be?

With all the controversy about the appropriateness of Wilson, our attention has been taken off what should be more important to us, that is, what Obama was arguing.

I share Glenn’s frustration that Brooks was wrong but rewarded.

However, Glenn says this,

“David Brooks got promoted within our establishment commentariat to The New York Times after (one might say: because of) the ignorant bile and amoral idiocy he continuously spewed while at The Weekly Standard.”

…and, though I'm frustrated, I have to object. Brooks probably was promoted because of his general regard within the profession and the expectation that he would represent some views which the Times wanted articulated within their op-ed pages.

It is true that his war promotion was not fact based, and that the promotion of that war, while he ignored or "sneered" at other less destructive alternatives available, was immoral.

But, I suspect the NYT, the Standard, and Brooks already hold a view about the United States and the rest of the world based on different considerations and so, is not bothered by the miscalculations or mistakes Brooks, or any of the other cheering squad makes in promoting these wars.

What are those considerations? Maybe they have to do with the idea that the U.S. deserves to be the world’s policeman out making trouble for bad guys everywhere? There's maybe something morally special about us. Or, maybe it has to do with the fact that corporations and their lobbyists have to find wars or create wars in order to justify the enormous costs to the taxpayers of the military-industrial budget and the national security state. And, as such, it doesn’t matter whether Iraq, or Afghanistan, or whatever, are really threats. So long as they can be made to seem so, that is enough. Or, maybe what Brooks says doesn’t matter, so long as he sells papers.

The reason I need to object is that it isn’t enough for we who want to resolve these conflicts to point out that Brook’s had wrong conclusions. Yes, it turned out that there were no weapons of mass destruction lying around all over Iraq. Brooks wanted us to believe that we had to invade and shoot up the place in order to prevent an inevitable catastrophe.

The problem with attacking his conclusion that we have to attack and invade is that he can very easily concede to Glenn his conclusions about Iraq, but, because he still has confidence in the arguments that gave him those conclusions, he is free to use those arguments to make the same kinds of conclusions about Afghanistan, or any number of other countries. Glenn has not given him any reason to think that his arguments for war cannot be applied to the next threat that looms over us.

Glenn is allowing that the only way to show Brooks wrong is to invade the countries that Brooks recommends we invade and see if we find those dangerous weapons, or stop the nefarious plots of the Taliban, and so forth. Glenn’s argument that Brooks was proven wrong does not allow us to see that Brooks is ignorant or immoral until we do the test that Brooks wants us to do, i.e., the invasion, the killings of our enemies, the destruction of whatever plot that exists out there.

So, instead of doing the empirical studies that Brooks lays out for us, we should address the arguments Brooks relies on, for example, that we need wars to keep our economy going, that the only thing these guys listen to is the barrel of a gun, that their religion makes them unreasonable, and so on.