You need to remember the context.

I was in the midst of obviously baseless allegations being made against me, not because of anything I actually said but because some very nasty[1] people disagreed with a naming decision I had made.

If you ever find yourself in that situation you are way past the principle of charity.

I'm not saying I couldn't have handled it more gracefully and probably would today, remember this was an obscure mailing list post from 3 years ago that someone dug up.

[1] This is not to suggest that everyone who disagreed with my decision behaved badly, it was a small minority