Remember When Liberals Were All About Civility?

Neither do I.

Today's Wall Street Journal carries a story with the following headline: "President Test-Drives a New Tone." Finally the president is living up to his own admonition to "be civil," to "be better." HA HA HA HA, just kidding. The Journal reports Obama's campaign is "looking at ways for Mr. Obama to be more aggressive":

"After the debate, I had a bunch of folks come to me: 'Don't be so polite, don't be so nice,' " Mr. Obama told a San Francisco crowd.

Perhaps the most prominent change in Mr. Obama is his stump speech. . . . [Since adopting the new tone] he has continued to attack Mr. Romney on the stump in a way his supporters wished he had in the first debate, criticizing the GOP nominee's tax plan and accusing him of misrepresenting himself and his positions.

"Get him next week," a woman in the San Francisco audience shouted.

The Puffington Host reports that Obama declared flatly in a radio interview: "I was just too polite" in the debate and promised "a little more activity at the next one."

Of course, standing in front of an adoring crowd and talking trash about an absent adversary is easy. Reader Daniel Lepanto notes that the president "is great at saying mean things when people cheer him for saying them. But when he has to be in a room or stand on a stage with a person and say mean things to his face, it seems that's a whole different story." 

It remains to be seen if Obama even has a bully's courage. What does seem clear, however, is that his promise last year about civility was, to quote a great orator's speechwriter, "just words." By all indications, he is willing to be as nasty as he thinks he has to be--and as the liberal media, also former champions of civility, urge him to be--to win re-election. The only question is whether he is able.