CHUTZPAH. The Anchoress, under her pen name Elizabeth Scalia, pleads in a PJM essay against "name-calling" -- as practiced by "rabid Bush-haters."

I could leave it at that, but let's just take a quick look at some of the Anchoress' greatest hits:

Is it just me or is Bill Clinton looking increasingly like the the smug bastard son of Boris Yeltsin?

Is Obama a megalomaniac?... If he wins, no one can say we didn't see megalomania... (Also, Obama is "a presidential candidate [who] needs to get up on stage and jeer at his country and countrymen for their lack of so-called sophistication to his 'sophisticated' and self-hating supporters," who are also "jack-booted silencers of dissent"; the press are Obama's "whores," etc.)

Nancy Pelosi Orwell: The Lady Likes Control... Feinstein: Tomorrow belongs to the people! Pelosi: Excuse me, comrade, I think you mean tomorrow belongs to me!

Jimmy Carter... the most repellent ex-president, ever...

This only draws from recent examples in which the Anchoress' usual passive-aggressive approach flares unto raw slander. By and large she prefers to use devices such as imaginary dialogues and funny dialects to mask the full intensity of her rage. I'd say her latest self-casting as the Voice of Sweet Reason isn't fooling anybody, but with cases such as hers, we must admit the possibility that she is fooling herself.