via Sully:

"You're going to be up against people who have an opinion, a modem, and a bathrobe. All of my life, developing credentials to cover my field of work, and now I'm up against a guy named Vinny in an efficiency apartment in the Bronx who hasn't left the efficiency apartment in two years" -- Brian Williams, anchor of the "NBC Nightly News," speaking before New York University journalism students on the challenges traditional journalism faces from online media.

My name is not Vinny. My name is John Doe...Opps..sorry....So what's wrong with effciencey apartments? What a wanker...

WaPo blogger William M. Arkin created a little dust up in the virtual pages of WaPo this week. A little background: After watching an NBC Nightly News report that had troops bemoaning the lack of support at home Arkin posted that the soldiers should be grateful that we do respect them, even if we don't support the mission.

Well, I'm sure you can guess how well that went over with many. WaPo's editors had to close the comments after more than 900 made it through their filters, most not so nice in tone. Apparently the masochist, Arkin responded again.

1500 comments and another closed thread later, Arkin had been insulted in every possible way. Never one to back away from a fight, Arkin takes issue with the ad hominem used in lieu of debate:

I'm trying to make sense of the worldview of those who have responded. For the critics, I have become the enemy and have been demonized. In that process, I have ceased being a person, an individual, or a human being, all essential to justify the campaign to annihilate me. I'm not trying to offer myself up as victim here, nor do I expect the critics to change their view. I'm merely pointing out the process and the implications of the dehumanization.

So what do you think? Arkin's plea for civility (one I share--you commenters can be brutal and seem to forget that there are real people behind the words you're reading) suggests that a civilized exchange is a lost art. Is it the anonymity of the internet? Is it that certain topics are just too provocative to discuss calmly? Or have we collectively forgotten our manners?

This seems like a good opportunity to also give big props to our site monitors. I see the grumbling about edited posts, but I give them full credit for trying to encourage real debate and keep the trollage to a minimum.

E-mails: Michael Brown needed his dinner before helping NOLA

NBC Nightly News and Countdown ran this story last night involving FEMA's Marty Bahamonde pleading for help with Michael Brown, and getting an email reply straight out of the "Twilight Zone."

Download | play -WMP-Bittorrent-WMP

Download | play -QT- Bittorrent-QT

Brown's press secretary: "It is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner..."

I only thought Michael Brown was incompetent.

NBC Nightly News special report

"I am baffled that any American company would want to have employees operating in Iran," says Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "I would think they'd be ashamed."

Video

Sources close to the Halliburton investigation tell NBC News that after that announcement, Halliburton decided that business with Iran, then conducted through at least five companies, would all be done through a subsidiary incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

"The purpose of these sanctions is to dissuade Iran from supporting terrorism and from seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction."

Our Vice President's old company has been doing business with Iran for years and that seems to be OK with everybody on the right. Does Susan Collins think that Dick Cheney should be ashamed?