Nearly 20 years ago, I thought my habit of cursing was under control. Then I went to work at a daily newspaper, and I soon tumbled off the wagon. I usually give up cursing for Lent, but I spend the rest of the year in such verbal decadence that I have something to give up again by the next Lent. The Hill reports that Gary Bauer, who once built a stereotype-defying friendship with Richard Gere, dropped the F Bomb in response to some of those charming protesters who have made Republicans feel so welcome in Manhattan this week. If GetReligion is to go medieval on Bauer for this moral failure, the moral indignation will have to come from Terry. Don't hold your breath, though: my hurricane-threatened colleague, knowing of my decades-long weakness for invective, has goaded me into writing this.

Nor can I pretend to feeling a greater sense of scandal when Dick Cheney told Sen. Patrick Leahy where to stick it. Considering that the Senate floor once was the scene of a thrashing, I find it impossible to work myself into a lather about the vice president's speech habits. (Among the pundits, Charles Krauthammer wrote the most candid column on the carnal pleasure of letting the F Bomb fly.)

None of this is to say the F Bomb is a good thing, or that our culture would be better off with more of it. I prefer to keep it behind a Break Only in Rhetorical Emergency glass, then to spend at least a day or two in self-loathing. But if you're a tailgater, an especially aggressive panhandler or a mincing motives-basher, it's your fault. Peace out.