I don't know quite how to say this, but I wish that David Ferguson would apologize to Ann Althouse.

There. I guess I just said it.

I knew and loved David in his earlier days as a blogger, and I was very upset when he stopped blogging. I had not realized that he was back, and only recently learned that he's acting for the world like a venomous, megalomaniac troll on steroids.

Really. "Smothered, thwarted lust?" "Anodyne Outhouse... Internet Laughingstock?"

Perhaps he's been infused with a new calling, and with that goes certain sense of urgency and importance, but I can't believe the things he's saying, the way he's baiting one of my favorite bloggers, and I'm just sorry to see it happening. (Obviously, David knows she has a temper, and he's just tweaking her. It's not funny; it's a little sadistic, and I think David knows it. At least I hope he does. I'd hate to think that a nice person like David could have actually become an activist.)

We're all guilty of hyperbole some of the time, but I think it can become a drug. If you start saying things like "today's Republican party is merely a JC Penney White Sale away from its cross-burning, lynching, Jim Crow roots," next thing you know, Ann Althouse becomes a Democrat heretic, and in need of a good whippin' and a burnin'.

David is a much bigger blogger than I am now, all dressed for success like he's ready to meet the next president. He's wearing the suits he once derided -- and for all I know he's ditched his once cool rock'n roll boots for a pair of shiny wingtips too. No crime there; just an indication that David is moving up in the world, and that he might even agree with at least some of my concerns about proper attire for bloggers. (However, just because you're looking like one of those mean-spirited conservatives you think are so evil, does that mean you have to act the way you think they act?)

Anyway, I'm not a believer in cosmic justice or fairness, so I doubt he'll be inclined to call this Ann Althouse-baiting nonsense off.

But I can dream, can't I?