I and a couple other people posted comments noting that Rangel had introduced the same bill multiple times in the past to no avail and that this time appeared to be just another grandstanding political maneuver that everybody involved understood was going nowhere, and that therefore the alarmist tone of the post wasn’t necessary. This was consistently done in a polite and conversational manner.

The blogger responded by flipping out: excoriating as brain-dead idiots the first couple comments to note this, then simply deleting and IP-banning any further statements of these arguments.

The Rangel draft bill indeed went nowhere. I made a followup comment noting this (which was not approved for posting) at the time it was definitively shelved. I made a followup comment (which again was not approved) expressing an opinion of those who avoid facing even their own minor errors.

Some time later, on another blog’s comment thread, I made note of the incident. The blogger mentioned earlier erupted with his own comment, a paragraph of pretty much solid foul language, concluding with a comment about how he sure felt better having shown me.

To this day, as far as I know, he hasn’t addressed either the simple fact of the failed prediction or the more serious issue of his reaction to having it pointed out.

What’s interesting is how _many_ such characters there are in blogs, once you actually start looking for them.