Colin McNickle, the Pittsburgh journalist whom Teresa Heinz Kerry told to “shove it” right after Teresa gave a speech on civility is now the subject of even more incivility–from Teresa’s friends and fans among the liberals. In e-mails and anonymous phone calls, McNickle writes (thanks, Michelle Malkin, for the link), he has received everything from blasts of obscenity to death threats. McNickle, if you recall, is the editorial-page editor for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review who had the temerity to ask Teresa what she had meant by “un-American” when she accused conservative politicians in her speech of “un-American” activity.


McNickle writes:


“‘Shove it, (expletive)!’ one fellow told me as I walked down a Boston street. ‘You’re the (expletive) who called Mrs. Kerry “un-American,”‘ a girl told me in Boston Common….


“‘I hope you burn in hell,’ read one e-mail. ‘You’re a (expletive) Nazi,’ went another. ‘Teresa should have told you to go (expletive) yourself,’ another friendly e-mailer offered. And these were among the milder communiques; those that included death threats will be forwarded to the senders’ respective hometown police departments.


“One of my daughters back in Pittsburgh was brought to tears by a caller to our house. The clever woman identified herself as a Washington reporter seeking to interview me but then embarked on a filthy tirade. It seems a member of the Heinz Kerry Civility Enforcement Patrol posted our home address and telephone number on the response part of my convention blog.”


Now, if any pro-Bush people dared engage in such rude and even illegal behavior, we’d be hearing ad nauseam about the “Republican attack-machine.” But of course there’s no such thing as a Democratic attack machine. The Democrats are the nice people, so much better-educated than the rest of us.


As could have been predicted, the liberal media community immediately closed ranks against McNickle on the ground that since he and his paper are both conservative in outlook, he can’t be a real journalist. So, as he writes, we got statements like these from our champions of press freedom on the left:


“Entertainer Patti Labelle told the Boston Herald that Heinz Kerry ‘should’ve pimp-slapped’ me. Molly Ivins either repeated or created the myth that I had grabbed the possible future first lady. I didn’t touch her.


“Bombastic, fact-challenged liberal filmmaker Michael Moore supposedly called me ‘rude.’ A friend told me that Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, a leftist journal, said the exchange was the result of a long-running personal feud between Heinz Kerry and myself. That’s absurd, patently; I don’t run in those circles.


“Longtime liberal national political columnist Jack Germond — now retired and a convention ‘guest’ who was shilling for his new book — told CNN’s Judy Woodruff that I was ‘not a legitimate newspaperman.’


“Ms. Woodruff allowed the slander to pass without challenge. Mr. Germond’s wife, Alice, is secretary for the Democratic National Committee, noted a profile published before the incident in Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine.”


And of course, Ms. Civility herself told the media that McNickle had tried to “trap” her with his question, while her husband, John F. the presidential candidate, defended his wife’s words. Ah, the FOTs–the Friends of Teresa, as The Other Charlotte calls them.


Meanwhile, National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez notes that upon hearing a G.W. Bush fan shout “Four more years!” from the back of the room just before a J.F. Kerry speech in Milwaukee, Teresa shouted back, “They want four more years of hell!” So very civil.