I'm a fan of civility.  I'm not one of those folks who thinks that efforts to encourage civility (like this one) are worthless.  However, if you're the president of an organization with a project dedicated to "restoring civility to America's discourse," you ought to be darn careful not to be blatantly and publicly uncivil yourself.  Via Taranto (link, link), I saw that Froma Harrop recently wrote the following by way of criticizing Obama's negotiating skills:

Make no mistake: The tea party Republicans have engaged in economic terrorism against the United States--threatening to blow up the economy if they don't get what they want. And like the al-Qaida bombers, what they want is delusional: the dream of restoring some fantasy caliphate. . . . Americans are not supposed to negotiate with terrorists, but that's what Obama has been doing. . . . That the Republican leadership couldn't control a small group of ignoramuses in its ranks has brought disgrace on their party. But oddly, Obama's passivity made it hard for responsible Republicans to control their destructive children. The GOP extremists would ask Obama for his firstborn, and he'd say, 'OK.' So they think, why not ask for his second-born, to which he responds, 'Let's talk.'

And if someone calls you on it, admit your mistake instead of digging the hole deeper.