The point is that while I don't personally appreciate hippie punching, and don't think hippie punching usually does much to serve my personal political goals, I can respect hacks who punch hippies in service of their goals. The job of hacks is to be, well, hacks, and I can respect competency in hackdom even if I'm not necessarily on board with their agenda. It's when they're both incompetent and pushing a crap agenda that I begin to worry about the people running the show...
