A reader’s e-mail recently accused me of writing columns full of vitriol.

According to Webster’s, vitriol is “the same as sulfuric acid”; when it comes to writing, it means words dipped in venom. That’s strong stuff, implying slurs and unproven charges. But my reader applied it to fact-based critiques of the Iraq war.

This e-mail was another reminder that, in today’s political climate, there seems little quarter for reasoned dialogue. Considered opinion is viewed as vitriol by someone who disputes it, not as part of a debate to stimulate thinking.

Why be surprised? On TV and radio talk shows nastiness is in vogue. Certain phrases get repeated in my e-mail as if the senders have heard them on Fox News or from Rush Limbaugh: “partisan left-winger,” “you and your ilk,” “traitor,” “beyond contempt.” Sometimes the screeds are accompanied by language unfit for a family newspaper.

From the other side of the political spectrum, I’ve been accused of shilling for the Bush administration because I don’t advocate a swift pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq.

When it comes to e-mail, there’s a level of irresponsibility inspired by the ease of zapping through the ether. The swiftness of the act inspires people to use language they’d avoid in a face-to-face encounter.

But I also sense a widespread assumption that criticism of government policy is no longer legitimate. The tone was set by President Bush’s charge in the war on terrorism, that “you are with us or against us.” The Iraq war has been elevated into a war to end all evil.

Such an eschatological framework leaves little room for debating how best to fight the battle or achieve a decent result. Yet those who raise such questions can’t be neatly lumped into “you and your ilk.”

Former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill has raised questions about the president’s motives for an Iraq war in a new book by Ron Suskind, “The Price of Loyalty.” A scathing report by Jeffrey Record just published by the Army War College asks whether the Iraq war was a dangerous diversion from the war on terrorism (www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/bounding/bounding.pdf). A cover article by defense hawk Zbigniew Brzezinski in the conservative journal The National Interest asks whether the Bush administration seeks “Domination or Leadership?”

As for columnists who allegedly spew vitriol, they may also defy the easy assumptions of those who lump them as “licentious liberals.”

I started in journalism as a radio correspondent during the Prague spring of 1968, where I saw firsthand the awfulness of Soviet domination. That led me to support NATO’s 1983 deployment of medium-range missiles in Europe to counter a similar move by Moscow.

I criticized Bush pere for abandoning the Iraqi opposition in 1991 and Bill Clinton for doing the same in 1995. I supported the war against the Taliban in 2002. But, after years spent as a correspondent in the Middle East, I questioned the Bush team’s rationale for an Iraq war and its unpreparedness for what would follow.

Now that U.S. troops are in Iraq, I backed the appropriation of $20 billion to rebuild the country because we cannot afford to let that country collapse into chaos.

Into what neat category do I fall?

I’d hope the category would be labeled “those who are still trying to avoid vitriol.” Like many Americans, I am angered by White House deceptions that preceded the Iraq war, but I believe a way must be found to stabilize Iraq and prevent it from undercutting the war on terror.

That requires serious debate, not name-calling. The good news is that many readers out there tell me this is just what they are looking for. So, in an election year where “vitriol” is likely to flourish, let the debate begin.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

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