I predict it will quickly vanish from public attention. The University of Arizona is creating something called the National Institute for Civil Discourse. Just the title makes me want to gag.

Announced just last week by the University of Arizona, the new civility institute will have as honorary chairmen former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. Together with the institute’s director, Brint Milward, they will promote compromise among opposing political parties and views and focus on political disagreements “from the grass roots all the way to the top.”

Because, when the country is going down the toilet, the one thing we want to discourage is any troubling of the swirling status quo.

I do like the Bierce quotation: “Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.”