The teabaggers scare me. Not because they’re passionate. I applaud that. Not because they think the government isn’t working for them anymore. I agree with that. The teabaggers scare me because most of them are idiots with no real ideas and no fundamental understanding of government and society. (“End all taxes!” “Then how will you pay for the roads?”)

Case in point: Thomas Zaleski.

John Gruber retweeted this:

You can see it was retweeted 14 times as of this post.

So then I tweeted:

My short URL link pointed to Mr. Zaleski’s original tweet. No longer. (We’re getting to that.)

So Mr. Zaleski responded to me:

So I responded to him:

So he responded:

So stupid me decides to actually try and engage him in a civil debate:

I haven’t gotten an answer yet. His individual tweets are now protected, so I can no longer link to them:

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not the only person who hammered this guy. I don’t take credit for scaring him away, but it was fun to be a part of the herd.

So let’s review:

1. I called him out for insulting Roger Ebert, a man who can no longer speak or eat.
2. He says something that doesn’t make a lick of sense and asks me to be civil.
3. I accuse him of being less than civil.
4. He claims he didn’t insult Roger Ebert.
5. I ask him a serious question.
6. He runs away.

All in all, a good day.