Poisoned discourse, Part II

Well, I didn't learn my lesson the first time and I went back to commenting over at All Things Conservative. That was clearly a mistake. The atmosphere for political discourse is at the lowest level I have ever seen it. It is sad, but I must consider the efforts to make ATC into a forum for a right/left dialogue to be a failure.
Bill Crawford made it clear today what he thinks about the situation.

The debate in this country is too partisan, and the blame for this lies squarely on the doorstep of Liberals.

When I tried to respond to the above linked post, my comment was deleted.
Since Bill feels that my comments at his site are abusive and disrespectful towards him, I will refrain from making them. I want to apologize for any percieved disrespect or discourteousness on my part.
And my other one-time friend at ATC, Mark Harden, should be pleased by my self-imposed exile from the site since he has been campaigning for my banishment for the past several months.
What I don't understand is why now? We've had this discourse going for more than four years. Why has it deteriorated to this level now?
Digby has some timely thoughts on that question which I think are instructive.

I don't know if you have noticed, but something truly ugly seems to be bubbling up from the primordial ooze of the conservative movement...
Clearly, people on the right are very, very angry right now and they are lashing out at their most hated enemies: Americans who disagree with them.

What I think we are seeing is the result of pent-up frustrations over the war in Iraq which has not gone as they expected and the realization that Hillary Clinton is likely to be our next president along with a veto-proof majority in Congress.
But whatever the reason, it has become practically impossible to carry on any kind of politcal discussion between right and left that does not quickly deteriorate into namecalling and hurt feelings.

But at least one good thing may come out of all this. The one other liberal commenter at ATC, Ann, is using this most recent blowup as the impetus to start her own blog. I will link to it as soon as she gets it up and running.