Not just this, but seems any article can bring out the trolls. There were some nasty debates on threads on breast feeding vs bottle feeding; on adoption some posters went berserk; on Scott Peterson's and Terri Schiavo's they showed up telling us not to be interested in those topics and to "get over it."
BTW, The Washington Times has a while back an article about blacks fighting for the Confederacy and of a black reenactor on the side of the South because of this link.
You've been around FR for a long time, the nastiness seems to have increased in recent years. Used to be most posters on these threads had some basis for their arguments, even a historical context. The new ones try to ram a particular point-of-view down your throat with extremist comparisons and little knowledge of the issues.
Perhaps it's the polarization of FR. Maybe it's just conservatives going one way, and the new influx of GOPer's going another way.
PS: Thanks for the info Dante3 - I'll have to look up that article.