Civility is a great commodity: As long as you are not one of THOSE!

Now, I would be offended by these three paragraphs, even if I was a die hard peacenik,

By Georgie Anne Geyer Mon Apr 10, 6:26 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Was I hearing right? In today's Washington, where lies, curses and calumnies have become the coin of this soiled realm, was it possible that I enjoyed an entire day of speeches and comments about civility, character and consultation between our lawmakers?

It seems that I and a couple hundred of other "oddballs" did just this. The day was in honor of the 80th birthday of one of the most moral foreign policy "oddballs" of our times, Ambassador David Abshire.

Now, the name of Abshire may not be known as well across the country as it is here, but in Washington, it could go down with some of the great names of our history. Physically, Abshire's a tall drink of water, balding now, with a quick smile and a kindly, but firm, demeanor that speaks for itself. Professionally, he's a quiet powerhouse, having co-founded the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 1962. As other think tanks have fallen to the neocon nonsense, CSIS stands as the prime think tank in Washington, housing heavyweights from Henry Kissinger to Zbigniew Brzezinski to former Sen. Sam Nunn.

Imagine! I would have never thought that desultorily referring to another's political philosophy as "nonsense" would go down as proper Ms. Manner's etiquette.

Of course, the only reason I alighted on this little jewel is that I get a Yahoo! alert every time Ziggy's name gets mentioned.

I get such a kick out of lampooning the ol' geezer.