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In fact, some would argue that she's just the most visible - if not the most historically egregious - tip of an iceberg that has been around since Internet discussions began in the early 1980s.

"Between now and the early days of Usenet, the level of abusive behavior has been distressingly constant," says Tim Bray, a veteran blogger and director of Web technologies at Sun Microsystems Inc.

The difference is, with 70 million blogs in existence today and 1.4 new blogs created every second, according to blog search engine Technorati Inc., there are just more people participating in online discussions, and "the more crazy people you've got reading them, the wilder the whole blogosphere can become," says Richard Silverstein, who advocates for a peaceful approach to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his blog.

And he should know.

Like Sierra, Silverstein is the victim of online harassment, in the form of hostile comments on his own blog, in external discussion groups and on blogs created solely for the purpose of maligning him.

Given the topic that he blogs about, Silverstein is no stranger to abusive commentary.

"It's part of the territory - if you want to write a blog like this, you're going to deal with unpalatable people," he says.

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They will recount his eloquence, his charm, his love of Lyndon Johnson, his incredible gift at speech making and his storytelling.

They will also tell about the wonderful love story he had with his wife Mary-Margaret.

Jack had the talent - that rare and fantastically elusive talent possessed by very few people in this world - Jackie Kennedy and Bill Clinton come to mind - of making you feel like the most important person in the world when he was talking to you.

I feel so lucky to know this first hand.

I experienced his generosity so many times.

Jack was a very important mentor for me in my years in Washington.

When I took over as CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, Jack was the first person I went to see.

He could have been patronizing, perfunctory and even dismissive.

After all, I was almost 40 years his junior and I was taking on a role where he would have to sit at the table with me on behalf of our sister organizations.

Instead, he gave me kind advice, spent lots of time with me and included me as a peer in many high profile industry meetings and events well before I had my sea legs.

Jack was sometimes faulted for seeing rosey scenarios where they didn't exist in order to keep life graceful.

That is a quality I would choose over cynicism any day.

Particularly in politics.

I think tonight's Democratic debate had the tone about presidential politics that Jack would appro...