The Angry Left is, well, angry. Very angry. In fact, they are foot-stomping, name-calling, my-opponents-are-scum-of-the-earth angry. The proximate cause for the latest temper tantrum is the firing of David Weigel by the Washington Post. But it could have been any topic on any given day.

This time the target is Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, who is lectured by Glenn Greenwald for bitter, shrill, and screechy attacks, for casting “snide insults,” for lashing out with vindictiveness and “spit[ting] petulant playground epithets with absolutely no accountability.” Next up at Salon: Tiger Woods preaching on the importance of marital fidelity.

There is by now a boring predictability to the left’s modus operandi. Any disagreement with them rises to the level of an assault on truth, beauty, and goodness, requiring a full retaliatory, ad hominem response. So if Goldberg thinks the Post’s firing of Weigel was justified, he is a really evil fellow. Worse, Goldberg actually supported the Iraq war. And David Bradley offered “money and gifts” — even ponies to Goldberg’s children! — in order to lure Goldberg from the New Yorker to the Atlantic. Just where will the corruption end?

The question many thoughtful writers confront, in the face of the huffing and puffing of the lunatic fringe, is how does one respond? It’s not always obvious or easy. In this case, Goldberg does a nice job of showing admirable self-restraint (and humor) and offers Greenwald an invitation. We’ll see what transpires.

It has long struck me as peculiar that the left is so morally outraged that one of the most sadistic rulers in modern times, Saddam Hussein, was deposed from power. One can oppose the wisdom of the Iraq war while still being grateful for how far Iraq has traveled since Saddam was removed from power. But not the left. For them, the Iraq war was and shall forever be George W. Bush’s War, the Neocon’s War, the Immoral War. In point of fact, it was, in part, a war of liberation. And what is really disconcerting to the left is that the surge worked and progress is being made (even if slowly and with setbacks). Talk about indignities.

In any event, as between the informed and nuanced views of Goldberg (on just about any subject) and the simplistic and ideological approach used by Greenwald (on just about every subject), discerning readers can decide for themselves.