The Great Game

The admission of need for something called a Bloggers Code of Conduct is about more than just the Web. The deeper import of what may be happening here should be evident in Mr. O'Reilly's remark, which was the final sentence in a long New York Times article on the subject last Sunday: 'Free speech is enhanced by civility.' It is difficult for me to imagine a more revolutionary sentence. One might call it 'subversive.' 'Free speech is enhanced by civility.' The revolution comes at the end of that sentence. Free speech we know about. Civility we have forgotten. Ask Don Imus.

Daniel Henninger