Ordinarily I like my politics like my martinis, dry and not over-ginned. The business of setting policy is one that directly affects the lives of individuals, sometimes in life and death ways, and it deserves to be dealt with seriously. And then there comes along a sideshow that is so entertaining that being sucked into the distraction is unavoidable.

Such is the case with the sparring match between Mediaite.com’s Tommy Christopher and the founder of BigGovernment.com, Andrew Breitbart, that, like a barfight in a John Wayne movie, started in the metaphoric indoors of columns and eventually crashed through the swinging doors where the two kicked up dust in what serves as our modern town square, the public chatspace on Twitter.

The tangle began on the scene at the Conservative Political Action Committee 2010 annual conference in Washington, D.C., where some observers say that Christopher baited Breitbart into a verbal scuffle by accusing him of racism in connection with the investigative reporting conducted by Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe to expose possible fraudulent practices by ACORN employees. Christopher vehemently denies this claim although his Mediaite column on the subject seemed to lead readers subtly back in the direction of revisiting the issue of race.

The fight dragged over onto Twitter Monday and Tuesday with Christopher (@tommyxtopher) and Breitbart (@andrewbreitbart) exchanging sarcastic barbs, each combative wordsmith oscillating between attack and defense, bait and evade, and hit and run.

The dust-up between ultra-conservative Breitbart and, well, every political writer left of David Broder should come as no surprise to Breitbart himself. His bellicose, bull-in-the-china-shop approach is something he identified on his own when writing a brilliant column last year that ran in The Washington Times under the headline “I, Jerk.”

In the column, Breitbart tells the story of a night out with his wife ruined when, having jumped to the conclusion that their streetside supper in Santa Monica was being spoiled by a protest against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he flipped the bird at a group of people who were, he would later find out, marching against the forced conscription of children in Uganda. Breitbart wrote:

In this day of polarized politics, it’s incumbent on good citizens to be vigorously truthful. Even in the heat of battle, partisans should own up to their mistakes. Rectifying errors builds credibility. Honest self-criticism ensures a healthy debate and a healthier democracy.

OK, fine. I messed up.

It will be up to the parties involved to consider Breitbart’s wise advice and choose whether to follow the model he described. Truth should always be a higher calling than partisanship and the defense of one’s own pride, but neither does the verbal and textual jujitsu between two partisans represent any kind of breakdown in modern politics.

What does this whole fracas teach us if not that people do not agree, sometimes those disagreements become heated, personal, and less than civil. The real question is, “So what?”

If politeness and a reserved nature were prerequisites for participating in democratic discourse America would quite simply not exist. History has mellowed the mythical belligerence of patriot and Founding Father Samuel Adams, but there can be no doubt that his fanning of the flames of dissent against British rule in Boston was instrumental in setting the kindling conflict aflame.

Breitbart, just like Christopher and so many other passionate American voices, will let loose their ire when the stakes are high enough. Having people among us who care enough to risk embarrassment is a blessing we should not judge to capriciously.

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