CORRECTION: The title of this piece originally called columnist Nick Coleman “Norm” by mistake. The title has been corrected. My apologies — that’s what I get for posting at 0300 hours.

Wow, the blogosphere really seems to be getting under the skin of Minnesota Star-Tribune columnist Nick Coleman.

With the talent and finesse of a monkey flinging feces at the zoo, Coleman launched a libel-filled rant against Powerline, Time magazine’s “blog of the year” that was key in taking down Dan Rather and Memogate. He even insinuated, as per Jim Geraghty at the Kerry Spot, that the Powerline crew is compensating for, how shall we say this delicately, less-than-generous endowments below the belt.

Now that’s good journalism, Coleman. Dan Rather should have tried that — “These memos are real because mine is bigger than yours.”

Speaking of below the belt, where the hell are the Strib’s editors in allowing such a temper tantrum on their pages? For such a politically-correct newspaper, hinting at the sizes of the Powerline crew’s hoo-hahs is sure to make Coleman some enemies among the “womyn” in his newsroom.

But witness the power of the blog. A whole mess of them, now including Rathergate, have posted Coleman’s little meltdown on the photographic memory of the Internet, a far greater audience than the Strib’s readership. A partial list of blogs competing in he Great Coleman Beatdown can be found here.

So Coleman, all your tantrum did was to fuel interest in Hugh Hewitt’s new book on the blog revolution.

I think this is what has Coleman so upset. The MSM’s information monopoly is crumbling around them — Powerline’s deconstuction of Memogate proved that the media can no longer charge at a story without proof. Without proof, well, I guess all that is left is to comment on the size of your opponent’s genitals.

If you ever want to hurl some invective at me, Coleman, show me yours and I’ll show you mine. Then again, I think you just did.

UPDATE: Fraters Libertas goes inside the Strib’s editorial board meeting and watches as its members try to pin the killer tsunami on the Bush administrtion. It’s a must-read, and is likely happening in every newsroom above 100,000 circulation as we speak.