How often we've heard that we malcontents in the left blogosphere--otherwise known as moonbats, libtards, and, in the covered-wagon days of the internet, idiotarians--are grievously lacking in courtesy, continence, civility, maturity, and all the other little dabs of do-ya that distinguish mankind from the slobbering beasts. Some have even tallied the the obscenities spat on lefty blogs to quantify the rabid froth that is said to be a symptomatic byproduct of Bush Derangement Syndrome and similar untreated malignancies of utopian fanatics. If only the average Daily Kos diarist dug deep in his foxhole with a bayonet between his teeth could emulate the Thurberesque jollity of a Glenn Reynolds or James Lileks, oh what a wonderful polka-dot world this could be.

This, I suppose, is their idea of what constitutes class.

Yes, it's our old familiar sea-weeded she-creature, Shamela of Atlas Shrugs, flipping the middle finger in a two-shot with Cindy Sheehan at a recent, humid antiwar rally. Note that it is Sheehan, the supposed nutball peacenik, who is being genial, outgoing, and a good sport in the photograph, unaware that her good nature is being exploited by the rude, smirky host of a website recently pruned from the Pajamas Media blogroll.

When we see pictures of high schoolers flipping the bird in the pages of high-school yearbook, we assume that such behavior is immature and juvenile, a minor infraction but--jerky. So how much jerkier and juvenile is it when a middle-aged mother of daughters behaves this way not once but twice with Sheehan, and shows her contempt for other women at the sparsely attended ragtag event by posing with her with finger erect? (The full scroll of her pictorial pranks can be found at the Atlas Shrugs site along with the rest of her poorly composed shots; no link.) Is this how she wants her kids to behave, like some overgrown, undersocialized, camera-hoggy Lindsay Lohan? Is this someone whom Republican candidates like Duncan Hunter really want to be associated with?

Of course they're delirious with delight over in the dignified drawing rooms of the right blogosphere. Not only do most of the commenters at the warhawk blogs where these fotofunnies have appeared applaud Pamela's naughty impudence, but they seem sexually excited by the entry angle of her one-finger salute.

Perhaps Pamela's jousting, outthrust, richly tanned finger is a surrogate phallus that they long to have oiled, primed, and inserted into a cranny of their own devise, filling an erotic vacancy left void by the defeat of Rick Santorum in 2004.

Barring clinical examination, I wouldn't be able to say for sure. Further research is required. It is not for me, a mere civilian in the field of group psychology, to judge which tabs fit most appropriately into which holes. But I do think we might be spared future lectures on etiquette and refinement from the likes of these leering, jeering yutzes.