After labeling me a Nazi, and allowing one of the most vicious, foul comment threads I’ve ever witnessed outside of Indymedia to develop at his blog (including at least one comment from a real Nazi, posting with the name “666”), Matthew Yglesias now wants me to dance for him: Changing the Tone.

One must concede that this take on LGF is a bit of a cheap-shot, though the resemblance captured really is uncanny. The comments section, meanwhile, has either devolved into name-calling or else simply features a continuation of the name-calling I began, depending on your outlook.

At any rate, what I would say really makes LGF seem so hate-filled is that amidst its various bashings of this or that Muslim or Muslim group or liberal or liberal group it’s shockingly devoid of actual content. So I’d like to raise the level of discourse around here if Charles will take me up on it — write a post containing an actual policy proposal, and I’ll either agree with it (it’s possible — our motivations are a bit different but neither of us likes bipartisan hysteric Bob Kerrey [I note Kaus also shares this POV]), or try and say why it’s wrong. I scrolled all the way down the front page, which contains a great deal of text, but couldn’t find one. Maybe there’s one in the recent archives that someone who’s been keeping up with the site could direct me to.

This actually makes me feel much better. Apparently, I’m such a Svengali that I’ve managed to build up a darned respectable readership with a blog that’s “shockingly devoid of actual content.”

Of all the criticisms of LGF, that’s certainly one.

As before, I invite anyone interested to go read the discussions at Yglesias’ blog, and judge for yourself what took place after young Matthew opened the door and invited the obsessed LGF-hating nutjobs to rave and rant. It’s quite instructive.

As for Matthew’s “challenge,” I do have one policy recommendation, based on the sage words of Steve Gadd. Just before we played a show in Hamburg, he told me, “Always carry your wallet onstage.”