I’d distinguish between ‘looking ridiculous’ and ‘revealing oneself in a moment of candor’. Certainly if I were to follow one of my acquaintances around all day there’d be innumerable little moments that would probably be a little embarrassing captured for posterity. If one of them shoved a campaign staffer and repeated what O’Reilly said, they’d stop being my acquaintance.

It comes down to how often a fundamentally decent person behaves like a jackass. For most fundamentally decent people, I think that number is quite small.

Dan, you’re getting downright radicalized!

As you know, the web-evangelist answer is to say IT’S A CONVERSATION!!!