When the Philadelphia Inquirer is good, it is very, very good. And because I find myself criticizing the paper so often, I think I have a responsibility to speak up when I have something good to say about it.

So it is with "Packing heat - and political punch" -- the title of Beth Gillin's review of Tammy Bruce's The New American Revolution:

Tammy Bruce calls herself "a new radical individual," which conjures up a masked anarchist with a baseball bat running through the streets shouting "Death to the state!"

But no.

She actually fits neatly into a long American political tradition, says the prolific author, garrulous talk show host, and noted maverick - although "traditional" seems a stretch when applied to a gun-toting, pro-choice, 43-year-old lesbian who is both a Ronald Reagan admirer and the former head of a California chapter of NOW.

Bruce explains.

"The independent rebel, who is passionate about personal freedom, represents the instinctual core of America," she says, speaking at machine-gun speed, firing epigrams like bullets.

Which brings us to the .38 snub-nosed Smith & Wesson she calls Snuffy.

"When I take Snuffy out of her drawer in my nightstand and we go to the shooting range," Bruce says, "it reminds me that I am responsible for myself. Owning a gun is at the heart of what it means to be an American. The only reason this country is free from government tyranny is that people like me are armed."

Indeed, the thought of this self-described Irish Italian troublemaker packing heat should make criminals bent on evil-doing quake in their boots.

While I try not to brag much, I'm proud that I've linked Tammy Bruce's site from the very beginning of this blog, because I've always admired her, and I'm delighted to see that she's done as brilliant a job as a blogger as she has as an author and activist. I think it's a testament to her combination of irrefutable logic and irresistible charm that the Inquirer's treatment of her is so wonderfully fair.

Yes there's more, and it's almost all very refreshing stuff.

"I spent years compromising, and at times saying things I didn't totally agree with, in order to belong to the left," Bruce says, and she didn't become a true individual until she learned to reject group-think. "It was part of my growing up."

Tammy Bruce's answer to the charge that America is locked in a war between competing camps? Despite all the media hoopla, most Americans abhor idiotarianism:

But how can she presume to describe most Americans when everyone knows the country is polarized, split, and shouting insults across a red-blue divide?

"The mainstream media highlights the divide and reports on the extremes," Bruce replies, whereas "most Americans are as opposed to the liberal rantings of Howard Dean and George Soros as they are to the conservative ravings of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell."

While in Manhattan, Bruce helped launch Open Source Media at www.osm.org, a consortium of 70 diverse blogs on topics from politics and true crime to designer shoes and holistic pet care. She's on OSM's advisory board and blogs at http://tammybruce.com.

Despite the radicalism inherent in such talk of a libertarian middle, the Inquirer's conclusion is shockingly favorable to Tammy Bruce:

"The power no longer resides with the elites. The power belongs to whoever wants to take it," says Tammy Bruce with utmost confidence, sounding for all the world like a Sixties lefty at the barricades and signifying that in the fractured and shifting terrain of American political culture, labels have lost all meaning.

At this rate, the Inquirer itself will defy all attempts to label it.

I couldn't be more pleased.