Bill Plante discusses his now infamous question from yesterday, first reported on FishbowlDC.

But judging by some of the reaction, you'd think I had been shouting obscenities in church!

"Unprofessional;" "Inappropriate;" "Unbecoming;" "Doesn't show much class;' "you are a total idiot;" "Shill for the liberal Democrats." ...

There was no time to frame that question because the event this morning was a statement, not a news conference. So I asked a more direct one. I thought it unlikely that they would answer, but it's always worth a try. ...

The point is that reporters are not here as guests. We're here to ask questions.

Why?

Because if we were ever to agree to "behave," we'd be walking away from our First Amendment role -- and then we really would be the shills we're so often accused of being.

Although we'd never publish them, we can assure Plante that his inbox wasn't the only place where the hate mail went yesterday: Thanks to FishbowlDC's Drudge link to our Plante post, we received tons of nasty notes about Plante. Guess he hit a sensitive spot...