Note to TIME Magazine columnist Joe Klein: suck it up, Joe. Some of us have been targets of the insane bile that pours out of the left-wing blogosphere for years. It didn’t just start recently, and it’s not unusual or rare. The left-wing haze in which you live parted for a second and you saw what the Nutroots are really like. Welcome to the reality-based real world.

And your attempt to blame it on “right-wing talk radio” is just plain dumb.

Beware the Bloggers’ Bile.

But the smart stuff is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere. Anyone who doesn’t move in lockstep with the most extreme voices is savaged and ridiculed—especially people like me who often agree with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore considered traitorously unreliable. Some of this is understandable: the left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

You and your magazine helped build this constituency, Joe. Own it. Be proud of it.