When I was a young middle manager I went through a short period where I ended caustic memos with a Sicilian phrase "Livarsi `na pietra di la scarpa" that should have translated to "Take the stone from my shoe" . I soon stopped using it when I found that it was almost impossible for any two persons to translate it the same way.
Anyway I disagree with yorur conclusions. I don't think Tom was weilding an intellectual meat ax. He was in nearly all cases weilding facts that felt like a meat ax to someone that disagreed with his position.
No one particulary wants to deal with facts that they don't like and so they respond with facts they do like or change the subject entirely. Now, in a war of facts, no one around here is going to win against TB's relentless salvos, they are just going to get mad. TB wanted his facts dealt with one at a time, even if they didn't change your mind. I understand that's not going to happen. In the end TB could not understand it.
Accusing him of being a sycophant to the Bush administration was probably the last straw. I am aware of a number of times where he parted ways with Bush. In most cases it was where Bush broke with conservative values but TB did break ranks a number of times and I don't think he has a very high opinion of Bush overall.
The fact that TB was nearly always factually correct does not mean that there are not other right ways to do things. There is always more than one way to skin a cat and neither has to be evil. In many cases I disagreed with TB, not because he was wrong but because I could see value in something else that was also not wrong. I recall that TB has said that he is not a pragmatist and he would not abandon the conservative solution even if another solution accomplished the same goal easier.
The way to avoid frustration with TB is to not allow yourself to feel cornered and don't engage him, it is pointless. You could both be right but there will never be a resolution and you will never outflank him with facts. It always devolves into the liberal hearing nothing but stupid, stupid, stupid and the conservative hearing only evil, evil, evil.
TB is one of the most intelligent guys I have ever interacted with but he is an uncorruptable conservative idealogue. I think I could be happy in his world but it is not the only way.
The thing that will settle this place down more than anything is (assuming Obama wins) the realization that things will not change that much. The ultra-liberals will be scratching their heads and wondering why there is no sea change and the ultra conservatives will continue to bitch about the same old things and take their turn predicting eminent doom. The democrat on the street will swear things are better and the GOP on the street will say it was better with Reagan.