‘Partisanized moderates’

August 15, 2006

Josh Marshall received a fascinating email yesterday, which prompted one of those posts I wish I’d written. It definitely struck a chord with me.

Josh’s reader noticed that TPM has experienced subtle changes over the years, as Josh has slowly become, in the opinion of his correspondent, more partisan and ideological. The reader blames Bush, not Josh, for the perceptible shift, and even describes the slightly harsher tone as “reasonable” and “necessary” given the circumstances. But, the reader concludes, “I really am angry about the loss of a worldview and approach that I valued.” Josh responded:

President Bush and his acolytes and enablers deserve all the blame in the world. But it’s not sufficient. As Americans I think we need to grapple with what’s happened. And it goes beyond President Bush. He did after all win reelection. He marginally expanded his congressional majorities. In the rough and tumble of the political moment, the fight needs to be taken to the president and his party. But we also need a more probing consideration of the forces that have made all this possible.

In any case, this is all a way of saying that in this all-or-nothing crisis the country has been passing through, I think it’s made sense to line up with those who say, No. I guess I’m one of those partisanized moderates Kevin Drum has spoken of (not sure that’s precisely the phrase he used.) That leads to a certain loss of nuance sometimes in commentary and a loss in the variegation of our politics generally. As a writer, often it’s less satisfying.

But I cannot see looking back on all this, the threat the country is under, and saying, I stood aloof.

I can definitely relate. When I started the site, I made a conscious decision to strike a “moderate” tone. The writers I enjoy most — people like Josh and Kevin Drum — can deliver devastating political critiques, but do so in even-tempered, always-fair, always-intellectually-honest ways. It’s a style I’ve tried to emulate, and will continue to do so.

But like Josh, given the political environment, I find it impossible to take a detached, impartial look at the landscape and maintain a stoic temperament.

Frequently, I get the sense that I don’t go nearly as far readers would like in denouncing, well, everything we’ve seen since 2001 in much stronger language than I’m accustomed to using. I’ll never forget the one angry email I received a while back from a distressed reader who complained that I’d referred to Bush as the “president,” when he’d clearly stolen two presidential elections, the email said, and didn’t deserve the title. (He demanded I apologize and run a correction. I hope he’s not still waiting.)

Still, like Josh Marshall, I’ve found myself less tolerant of transparent nonsense in recent years. Ezra said he began writing “believing the best about my opponents, approaching the debate as something to be valued and the ideas as good-faith efforts to be considered. But I was wrong again and again, and as my willingness to assume good-faith repeatedly proved an analytical weakness, I eventually abandoned the effort, and my predictions have been the better-informed for it.”

I feel largely the same way. On the one hand, when current events spiral out of control, and I see one side of the political divide as responsible, there’s no point in pretending otherwise. On the other hand, I could try to maintain some kind of dishonest neutrality in the hopes of maintaining moderate street cred, but if political rivals will perceive this as timidity to be exploited, there’s no motivation to carry on a bi-partisan charade.

This doesn’t mean constant profanity or writing in all caps; it simply means describing one’s disgust in an honest way. One side of the political debate is wrong; there’s no reason not to say so.

Post Script: Kevin, who I would argue has changed subtly in recent years as well, takes Josh’s point in an interesting direction.

[J]ust recently I’ve been thinking about what a genuinely profound story this is, one that the mainstream media ought to be more interested in. Instead of writing incessantly about “angry bloggers,” they ought to be asking why so many mild-mannered moderate liberals have become so radicalized during George Bush’s tenure. It deserves attention beyond the level of cliches and slogans.

Indeed. Bush, as promised, has changed the tone of our political discourse.

August 15, 2006 at 4:03 pm

Indeed I have noticed, and repeatedly commented on, your verbal tic of ascribing confusion, wrongheadedness, willful blindness, or insanity to people like Rove and Cheney when the evidence would clearly indicate mendaciousness. Their benefit of the doubt has expired.

I can’t understand how anyone can be expected to be noncomittal when dealing with the clump of criminals, cretins, and outright lunatics who are running this country into the ground today. In the Old Days it could be assumed that Republicans, while sadly wrong-headed, were at least in some way well-meaning. Now, with a very few honorable exceptions, they can no longer be given the benefit of the doubt.

One of the things that keeps me reading this blog is that your approach is even-handed and not bombastic. Sort of like a pilot in a crises. Even in the direst of circumstances the pilots keep an even tone, knowing that the best chance to solve a problem is staying cool.

Not to blogwhore or anything (and if it’s out of line, please feel free to delete this post, ban me, or whatever you feel necessary), but I wrote about this whole “angry left” crap a while ago (note sure if that’s the correct link, thanks to an IP ban here at work).

It was after Maryscott O’Connor of My Left Wing appeared in the WaPo, and numerous people in the blogosphere used that piece as an example of how crazy many of us on the left are, while the right gets a free pass for all the hate speech is spews.

The reason we’re pissed, vitrolic, and even profane? Because we LOVE THIS COUNTRY. And when we see it going down the crapper — and have the cold hard facts to back that claim up — then you bet your ass we’re going to make some noise.

Granted, Josh and CB and Drum and others tend to be a bit more polite and professional in their posts, but maybe that’s because that’s who they are.

Me? Well, I’m an unmitigated asshole, so of course I’m going to be a bit more … feisty.

🙂

An understandable conundrum. I think it grows out of a feeling that other people think like you (we) do, that they can be reasoned with and will admit error if it is enunciated clearly.

They do not. The reason why George Will and others are now leaving the USS Republican is beacuse they see (as many of us came to realize much earlier) that the Bush people are not interested in facts, and that they openly mock those who are.

I’m not sure if it’s actual insanity or just a really nasty version of sociopathic (i.e. evil) behavior, but it’s consistent and it’s all too predictable. To deal with a sociopath, you can’t appeal to their sense of fair play or reason, and if you expect to ever get an upper hand on them you will need to be creative and use methods which would not be appropriate against a normal opponent.

It is good to remember that just as we project reason onto them (incorrectly) they project their own mentality onto us. Hence the shrill accusations of every partisan trick imaginable, like Joe’s “hacked website”.

I think Steve has done a remarkable job, and I love the way he writes up what needs to be said in a way that (hopefully) the passing moderate can appreciate as even-handed, considering our constitutional democracy has now been assaulted for five years by a bunch of evil bastards.

I have felt like a partisan moderate for years and years. I wonder if I have been moving leftward but it always feels like national politics have been moving rightward even more. The compliance of the national media is an excellent demonstration of this.

I cannot stand Bush, and the GOP of today, I positively cannot stand them. But in 1996 I would have been okay if Bob Dole won. I would have voted for Clinton had I been 18 at the time, but Dole was acceptable. I didn’t think much would happen to politics and to the country that would be that bad. John McCain was even my first choice in 2000. But I remember Bush’s 2000 campaign and how strongly it stank of bullshit. (“Compassionate conservative”, “reformer with results”, the irresponsible tax cut platform and the empty promises of tax cuts for the vast majority of Americans, all the neo-cons hanging around him, Cheney appointing himself Bush’s running-mate, and the strong intellectual and facial resemblance to Alfred E. Newman.)

We all know how much worse it has gotten since, I don’t need to review that. But yes, I feel like the debate has since been pulled strongly to the left so much that I no think polarized moderate is a fitting description for me. Nothing they advocated I agreed with anymore, and I’m hard pressed to think of anything in their platform that I do agree with. By 2004 my priority became to stop the GOP no matter what.

Frequently, I get the sense that I don’t go nearly as far readers would like in denouncing, well, everything we’ve seen since 2001 in much stronger language than I’m accustomed to using. I’ll never forget the one angry email I received a while back from a distressed reader who complained that I’d referred to Bush as the “president,” when he’d clearly stolen two presidential elections, the email said, and didn’t deserve the title. (He demanded I apologize and run a correction. I hope he’s not still waiting.)

I never feel too immoderate by doing this but I always refer to him as Bush rather than the president and even go so far as to occassionally call it the Bush regime rather than the administration. I ought to do the latter more.

The change in tone–which I’ve noticed in myself as well–is, I think, appropriate and rational. While I was certainly unhappy when Bush won, particularly because of what I considered, then and now, the illegitimate nature of his victory, I didn’t expect anything like what we’ve seen since. I don’t think anybody did.

By about the time it came out that they lied to Congress about Medicare Part D, and the Plame revelations, I was convinced that what Paul Krugman had written in his book–that these guys represented a radical new force in American politics that had no regard for the legitimacy of its predecessors–was true. At that point, pushing back as hard as I could seemed the only possible response.

That said, nothing would make me happier than seeing the unholy Rove/Cheney/DeLay/Norquist/Dobson coalition disgraced and destroyed. At that point, with the more honorable traditions of American conservatism reasserting themselves, the world might again become safe for bipartisanship.

My take on that article was that it was in response to a slightly different complaint, although one that did include an issue of tone. The real point of the response to Josh is that the awfulness of this administration has made us attack obvious falsehoods, and put us so often on the defensive, that we have been made to appear shrill, because of how upset we are. This is then taken as somehow our being shifted toward the left of the political sprectrum when many of us here are centrist, and even a few slightly right of center, just as we always have been. But the standard practice with this group is to select the most left wing participants, and paint the whole lot with that brush…but I digress… What we have in common is a feeling of being cheated, wronged, and just played for fools by an essentially criminal administration, but this doesnt mean our views have shifted.

The point of the response to Josh, I feel, is that since 2001, we talk about substantive policy issues much less than we should, because we end up attacking propaganda and similar garbage far too often. Because it is so essential to unmask this crap for what it is, we have come to believe that exposing the utter falsity of this administration’s compassionate conservatism, etc, is somehow to our political advantage, and I suppose to some degree this is true, but it fosters an anti-incumbency attitude, rather than a “this is how we’d do better” attitude.

Using an economics analogy, we are doing positive analysis, which to an extent, as Milton Friedman called it, is “the slave to normative economics”. — in a sense, our focus on “what is”, the positive analysis, takes away our voice on issues of what should be. We seem too often, acfroding to the respondent to Josh, that we are discussing what “ought not to be”.

Granted, this isnt true universally, since on Sunday, for example, the discussion here was much more on target towards a sense of policy mistakes by the administration on Iraq, and the political mess that goes along with it and how alternative tactics would make for a much more effective US security policy. On Iraq, generally Id say there is a lot of normative analysis.

But unfortunately, our disgust with what is happening to this country, and the sheer gall that these people have of foisting their unwanted policies upon us, peeves us to the point of losing focus sometimes. I, for one, feel this urge scratching at me every day – the urge to vent at the injustice. But overall, it takes time from saying a simple, no, this is the better way. We unfortunately have to spend time pointing out not only why their policies are bankrupt, but also why they are such bad ideas that they have to be sold to us through deceit.

My feeling, is that at this point, it is clear to anyone whos is looking, that we are dealing with an immoral and unethical administration. If you dont see it yet, you never will. But maybe I am wrong. I just think the balance has to start shifting to including more normative approaches, and more direct and more brief attacks on the fecklessness, mendaciousness and criminality. We beat around the bush (no pun intended) on this constantly, but the main point is, this group will lie about anything, and will do anything to achieve, accumulative and retain power. No need to elaborate – they need to go. Then move on to how it should be done.

“I get the sense that I don’t go nearly as far readers would like in denouncing, well, everything we’ve seen since 2001 in much stronger language than I’m accustomed to using.”

You do just fine, CB. It’s intelligent discourse we who come here crave. Stiletto-like wit rather than the foaming and cretinous blunderbus of the lunatic fringes. You just keep on like you are and everything be ok. 🙂

I can relate, Rian. (#7) For his entire first term, I borrowed Michael Moore’s phrase and referred to him as Governor bush. (And for some reason, I’m still not sure why, I would never capitalize the B in bush.) Now that I say “president,” I feel like I’ve matured a little, though I’m sure those on the other side just see it as “giving in.”

Nietzsche said (and I’ve often quoted), “When battling monsters you have to be careful not to become one yourself.” But when you document, over and over again, that the Regal Moron and the rest of the Bush Crime Family are self-serving, secretive, manipulative liars … well you’re not becoming “one of them”, “more partisan and ideological” as you put it. You’re telling the truth. It’s sort of like that “Give ’em hell, Harry” quote from Truman’s era (1956 actually). He said “II never gave them hell, I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.”

W is a uniter not a divider! Why do you hate America? 😛

But like Josh, given the political environment, I find it impossible to take a detached, impartial look at the landscape and maintain a stoic temperament.

So do I. I’ve gotten angrier and angrier over the last six years at the refusal of the administration to do anything but what it pleases. I want my country back, and I want GW Bush et al behind bars for a long long time.

There is a time for people to express anger and I think it’s coming. We’ve an administration that wages illegal wars, authorizes torture, vandalizes the Constitution, smashes the middle class, tramples all over guaranteed rights, violates treaties — the list goes on and on. I think I wouldn’t be so angry if this administration’s actions were not responsible for the slaughter, torture, and imprisonment of so many innocents. That is at the top of the list for me.

If it were another country, I think we’d be freer with our anger, but I wonder if most Americans will go to their graves believing they must not harshly criticize the government.

Now, all that said, what remains is action, and probably through voting, though I have many anxieties about that, too, simply because I, too, think the presidency has been stolen in the last two elections.

How much more can people take? What are we to do?

I too have noticed the angrier tone of Josh Marshall and Carpetbagger as the years progress and I do think it is because the actions of the republi-thugs in power have become more transparent and nakedly greedy.

Damn! These people hate us for our freedom. The MSM refer to the liberal blogers as angry and why shouldn’t we be angry? They are trying to steal our democracy! There are people out there who do not want a free exchange of ideas. They own the networks, most of the newspapers, most of the radio stations, and all but a very few publishing firms. The only thing they can’t control yet is a few liberal blogs. These people speak of internet forces as insurgents, as though we are treasonous, all because they have not figured out a way to control and silence every disenting opinion. Our democracy is under attack and it is not easy to be polite when the people in power are such a threat to our way of life.

This reminds me of a Tim Russert show with Paul Krugman and Bill O’Reilly about two years ago.
For those of you who didn’t catch it, imagine one of those smart, easy-going professors you had in college. Now imagine him debating the issues of the day with some drunk old guy they brought in from a local dive bar. It was something like that. Krugman tried to calmly use facts and logic, O’Reilly acted like, well, a stupid drunk.

Here’s a link of the transcript. Keep a bottle of Mylanta in easy reach:

http://pkarchive.org/economy/TimRussert080704.html

For me, this was an example of what passes for political debate in this country. One side acts like adults, the other side like a drunken student section. The trick, I guess, is to keep from becoming that which you despise.

I too started out trying to blog from a non-political, much less partsan, perspective. At least for me, what made me less and less receptive to right wing ideas. And that’s saying a lot considering that I identified myself as a Republican until I was 25.

The perfect storm of the reality of life and reading the opinions of wingnuts and the antics of their ideologues just pushed me over the edge. Opinions and theories that prior to 2002 I would have at least “given assent” to, I couldn’t defend anymore. I still can’t.

I just don’t feel like participating in the race to the rhetorical bottom that conservative commentators seem to care about exclusive to anything else.

In other words, it’s the shrill parsimony from the right that forces me to deny them any pleasure of seeing “Colmesian” acquiescence.

I second Dale in his comment and heartily accord with the others.

I come to this site almost reflexively now precisely because I feel secure with its pilot. If you trust the pilot and are cruising good you don’t mind loosening your seat belt and strolling around a bit. I like that feeling of freedom in a steady ship. Also, no need to create a rumpus just for the sake of it.

The change I feel resonates with racerx that you just can’t discourse with a sociopath, and sooner or later you realize that and give up trying. What you can’t give up is the horror and indignation at the mockery the sociopath makes of everything decent and meaningful. So we turn to each other to get it off our chests and see if we can work out a rescue plan. The enemy is deaf and blind to most of this, even if it hisses and spits venom in our direction.

I think the plan is going well. I think we’ve done our homework on the rascals, we’ve got the measure of them, they’ve lost the benefit of our doubt, and we just need to keep a steady eye on the goal, and have a good landing.

W drew the line in the sand when he said a person was either with him or with the enemy. There has been nothing subtle about this administration and its belief that we gave this nation to them to do with as they pleased and after we gave it to them we lost all right disagree how they treated it. To W, politics is a zero-sum game where the winner takes all and the loser is utterly vanquished. That’s not how democracy is supposed to work.

After his god-like division of this nation (lambs on the right, goats on the left) those who disagree with being pushed to the outside are yelling louder and louder about being marginalized. The fact that logical discourse and reasoned debate are not tolerated by the right was was never the aim of the center and left. But the fact that being reasonable gets you called a pussy by the right has racheted-up the dialogue to where this nation now sounds like a couple on the edge of divorce.

As for the Republican Party, it’s acting like a kid playing king of the hill on a playground toy — once it got into control it sought to make sure it never loses control again.

Josh is right. This is a time when we can’t sit by and acquiesce. I sit here realizing I will one day have to explain to my one year old son why I allowed this nation to get so messed-up and why he and his children will have to keep paying for it.

As for the CBR — your moderation and good analysis is appreciated by your readers.

“..but I wonder if most Americans will go to their graves believing they must not harshly criticize the government. “ — anney #14

That’s a very interesting image. It’s true : the American nation is a remarkable achievement of socio-political architecture. It’s well understandable that its citizens should feel proud of it. But every now and again even the best families throw up a delinquent. At first most members hardly even notice, then they get suspicious but are affraid to admit it. Finally, some are appointed to deal with the embarrassment, and the reprobate gets put away.

Where are we in this process now, I wonder?

TPM and TCBR are the only two blogs that I read every day (though I visity many others), and the TCBR has the only comments section that is consistently readable for me. I come not for the moderate politics, which I believe are welcome here, but for the generally moderate and civil tone. Other sites occassionally slip into bouts of triumphalism or profanity as a post vs. profanity in the context of a post that, frankly, turns me off.

I can look back to the fall of 2000 to see the milestones of my journey away from the conventional wisdom that fills the snack bowls of those who define themselves in the “center.” I won’t bore you with them, but I know exactly what they are. I believe I have been radicalized (relative to my POV prior to the 2000 recount), and my friends would agree. I am not sure if it is anger or impatience that I feel. I know that once I recognize conventional wisdom, I can scarcely stand to listen to someone parroting it. I am aware of the presence of a great deal of myth woven into the American narrative, but I also want to believe in that myth and want us to live up to our ideals. When we fall short – a result Bush leads us to almost daily – it grieves me.

I shock my family and friends by insisting that Bush “is not my president (he is the president of my country, but not MY president),” but Bush has never once acted as the president of anyone but his base. Since the day he took that stick named John Ashcroft and jammed it into the eyes of those who opposed him in 2000, Bush has governed to divide the electorate against itself. I agee with Josh: In times such as these, remaining disengaged and silent is not an option for me. I want it known that I oppose slide into darkness and away from principle that has been the hallmark of Bush 43.

Thanks, Steve, for the forum and the discourse.

I think your tone is just right. I have often wondered how you manage to keep your cool in the light of all the criminal misdeeds, incompetence and utter indifference toward ordinary Americans that this administration has displayed, so I’m glad you’ve written this post and admitted it’s really tough to keep the anger from surfacing if not exploding.

The commenters here are extraordinary, and I think we all feel more free to vent than we would as hosts of our own blogs, so I’m satisfied with the way things are. I, too, like the idea that I can hold up The Carpetbagger to refute those who denounce progressive blogs as the ravings of drooling, commie, anti-American leftist crazies.

“I really am angry about the loss of a worldview and approach that I valued.”

I’m angry at those who brought such a state of affairs about, myself. Phrasing it as being angry at some vague amorphous cause is to refuse to fact that fact.

My favorite blog comment of all time (which, by the way, I did not write) addresses this very subject. To read it, go here and read the entry directly above “a different chris @ 12/16/2003 04:43”

Everyone startsw out nice and moderate and wondering why the playground bully is such an asshole. But after you’ve had your lunch money stolen often enough, it’s either kick him in the balls next time, or just hand him yours.

Being nice and responsible and polite with a thief in your home is not going to allow you to deal successfully with the problem, especially when the cops work for the thief.

Goldwater was right: extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, in moderation in the pursuir of justice is no virtue.

And like Josh and his commenter say, it’s all because of the other side and their take-no-prisoners politics.

Actually, I give you and others all the credit in the world for the way I write these days. Once, I wrote with far less reverence but with much less partisanship; I was crude because I liked the way it sounded. Over time, as I became a more active reader of others’ blogs, I toned down the rhetoric while turning up the partisanship of the content.

I agree with the entire meme that has been bandied about among you all the last few days. Your tone is exactly the one I was sort of seeking out as I began writing, and it’s the one I like to think I’ve found. I don’t think that I would have found it without good writers to model. So, yeah, thanks.

Ten years ago, I was a left-leaning moderate. Prior to 1992, I had never voted for a Democrat for President. Then came Clinton’s impeachment, two dubious elections, an unjust war, tax cuts for the rich, torture, and other assaults on the America I used to know.

Now I’m a fire-breathing liberal. Thanks, W, for making it so easy to choose sides. It will be a long time, if ever, before I forgive the GOP for what it has done to my country.
.

Our two party system is stacked against moderates, especially in the face of falling voter participation. Right-leaning ideologues have happily descended into the fray spittle-a-flyin’ whereas left-leaning liberals are still convinced that reason, compromise, and understanding are far superior as a means of guiding public policy. No surprise that self-declared moderates, having long been marginalized, are being pressured into becoming more and more partisan.

The solution lies in our own democracy and our antiquated first-past-the-pole system of election. It is about time we choose modern democracy for a modern era and put the old ways in a museum where they belong. The longer we dawdle; the longer the hysterics will be running our country.

CB.
For what it’s worth, even though you & Kevin & Josh may feel that increased partisanship/anger/etc. are called for in response to the current state of things (with which I heartily agree), I still feel that you manage to come across as quite reasonable under difficult circumstances, and that is why your 3 sites are my favorite blogs. I always feel that, no matter how bad it seems, there is still hope. There are still thoughtful, reasonable people … So please keep it up, cause if you guys lose it, a bunch of the rest of us will be right behind you.

OK, I retract my uneducated guess from my earlier comment that we arent moving further to the left, as it appears from follow ups that some people have moved more that way. But it is hard to tell if the impact here is that some of the readers have become more anti-conservative, because of the unsound methods being employed by the administration, or if they are becoming more pro-liberal, since anyone not at the top of the heap is largely getting the shaft the last few years. Personally, I still hold to the same theories about which types of economic policies work and dont, but on the political front, I think that the utter failure of our current course is instructive, and that it could induce people to see that not only in practice, but in theory the ideas are wrong. One cant really dispute a theory until it is tried, so the one positive thing about the absolute fuckups by this administration is that the ideas are as bankrupt as the executors are of competency. I personally havent studied politics enough to know this just by reading, but on the economics front, I didnt need another ruinous supply sider test to show me how stupid these ideas are.

Numerous political friends used to refer to me as a “militant moderate.” While Clinton was a little conservative for me on some issues (“don’t ask, don’t tell” the foremost example), by and large I tended to agree with a lot of his pragmatic, opportunistic centrism.

Now, like so many others in this thread, I find myself often reduced to all but screaming invective at this administration.

(1) I think much of that is because Bush has used the bold strategy to move to the right in such audacious strides that everyone is temporarily frozen by the gall of it, and by the time they catch their breath, the “compromise” position Bush may eventually forced to take is well to the right of where is previously had been. We all look more liberal not because the country has moved to the right (see current polling), but rather because the Republicans have framed the terms of debate so far to the right.

(2) I also think we end up looking shrill (do we really, or is that right-wing media spin?) because, as has been suggested above, we end up talking process – complaining about the new rules, not getting to the substance at hand. This, however, is no accident nor some choice the left has made. This is a conscious strategy by Team Rove. They are constantly throwing out junk, and because they presently have the bully pulpit, the MSM repeats it. We end up having to spend all day addressing the junk in the hopes that at the end of the otherwise pointless interview, we can get one line in about substance. We have yet to find an effective counter to this “throw a bunch of dust in their eyes” strategy from the right.

(3) I also attribute much of my change in tone to frustration with the public at large (see today’s post on the poll results for pop culture knowledge v civic knowledge). If most people don’t know the three branches of government, you end up feeling like you have to dumb down the debate. If what people are acclimated to hearing are the screaming heads like Limbaugh and Coulter, you feel like you can’t be heard if you speak in a normal tone and volume. The one downside of so much communication — newspapers, magazines, radio, 500 television channels, the internet (including tens of thousands of blogs) is that you have to be increasingly “out there” to get heard over the cacophony. That becomes an incentive to be the shrillest whistle (the only way I can begin to explain Limbaugh’s success). The listerners either can’t or won’t be discriminating in what they focus in on; they gravitate to the loudest sound. And again, much of the noise comes from the right — they dominated talk radio first, they dominated television first (from televangelism to Fox News).

I long for a day when we have the luxury of having subtle debates among the various strands of progressive thought, but for now (see my views on Nader, or the entire Lamont-Lieberman race, or why National Right to Life is more savvy than NARAL) re-establishing a position of strength requires everything from the center-point to the far left to stick together as best it can, which results in the suppression of subtleties. The one thing we can all unify on is how bad Bush is. Even the most moderate among us agree to that. So that is what gets discussed, that becomes the message.

I empathize. I’m another one who’s gotten less moderate and more shrill as the years have gone by. Some would say I’m more partisan, and I suppose I am. One of my readers has accused my blog of just saying ‘Not Bush’ over and over. I don’t see it as that, I see it as ‘pro-rationalism, ‘evidence-based’, ‘anti-jingoism’, ‘pro-Constitution’ and ‘anti-hypocrisy.’

It’s not my fault that the administration and Republican leadership keep lining up on the other side of all those things. I can’t keep giving them the benefit of the doubt when the pattern is consistent.

I write my blog from a screaming liberal’s point of view. And, although not a registered Democrat, I identify more with the Democratic party history than I do with the Republican party history. I started my blog out of sheer frustration after the 2004 stolen presidential election, and my purging from my life of those that espoused and touted the partisan political spin of the Bush group.

That said, I don’t always want to read raging leftist views, which is why I like reading this blog on a regular basis. It contains long and relevant posts, and, more importantly, really dynamic, insightful and geat comments from the regulars. I used to read TPM religiously until it went the “cafe” route. Now all Josh seems to do on TPM is link to the discussions at the cafe rather than actually post things of significance and relative to his point of view.

Stay the course, Steve. We all appreciate this site, as can be seen by the incredible feedback you get.

Which, reminds me of my first problems with posting comments on this site. I didn’t like the question “what color is an orange,” and I would typically type in something inane and just forget the post. After a while, I finally decided I wanted my comments to show up, so I aquiesed and answered the damn f…ing question!

I come to the current political landscape from a somewhat different perspective than that of the folks here who are “partisanized moderates.” I grew up in the sixties in an activist Quaker family — we talked about the nuclear arms race at summer camp, were involved in the civil rights movement, went to big antiwar rallies. Nixon, Agnew, Reagan, and Bush the First formed a dreary parade of reaction to the progessivism of the New Deal, the Great Society, the peace movement, the civil rights movement. I remember watching their skulduggery on TV nightly — and I can assure you that if blogs had existed then, there would have been plenty of bloggers soberly documenting all the gory details (the Plumbers, the media torching McGovern in ’72, “Carter” becoming synonymous with “malaise,” the horrific Reagan deficit, cowboy adventurism in Grenada and Panama, huge military buildups, Ollie North’s triumphant media circus in the Congress, Atwater and Ailes running Dukakis into the ground, Cap Weinberger’s pardon, etc., etc.). The Constitution and the rule of law might not have been under siege then as they are now — but the groundwork for the siege was being laid. Bush the Second could never have existed without this foundation.

I certainly didn’t agree with everything Bill Clinton did, but what his tenure meant to me was a return to normalcy for me after years of anger. I remember telling a friend in the late ’90s that “Clinton’s time in office has meant that I no longer have to be angry all the time.” There was a budget surplus, we weren’t at war, and we had the world’s respect. I almoist felt as if the days of right-wing reaction to the sixties were over and that, yes, we could all MODERATE our political views in the new century.

But I was feeling too mellow, and ignoring the fact that the wingers, rather than giving up gracefully in 1992, had come roaring back in ’94, sputtering, bile-filled, feeling entitled, unable to get over the idea that there was a Democrat (and a baby-boomer at that!) in the White House. All the GOP wanted to do after ’94 was get Clinton, like a lynch mob. And they did get him, at least up to a point. And what has happened since then I won’t go into, except to say that the impeachment brought the anger back — and the Kafkaesque events of the 2000 election brought back the rage.

So this has all been going on for a very long time. I have become resigned to the fact that these right-wingers, with all their hate and venom, and their MSM apologists, will be around for the rest of my life. But at the same time, those of us who resist them have found a new community in the blogging world — and a new way to help make a difference. The support for blogs like Josh’s and the Carpetbagger’s gives me reason to hope that someday, perhaps soon, the right’s balefiul influence on our country and our culture will be permanently on the wane.

I, for one, don’t come here for denunications and vitriol. Kos and Firedoglake have plenty of that and I rarely read them. I’m looking for actual discussion of actual ideas and honest analysis, warts and all. To that end, after dinner and before I go to bed I read a few blogs. The list varies somewhat but it always starts the same way: Boing Boing (because I need a dose of wonder), then Drum, Marshall, Schmitt, Clemons, Billmon and Carpetbagger. You might describe these as moderate. I describe them as thoughtful. I’ve got little use for partisan snark since I’m not driven by anger.

So ok, some of the people on my list may be somewhat less moderate than they used to be, but that goes along with thinking when affairs have taken the course they have under the current autocracy. When the government slides slap off the far right side of a flat Earth, a drive toward moderation becomes a drive to pull it back again and that can give the appearance of lack of moderation. I don’t really care. It isn’t moderation I’m looking for per se. It is honesty, thoughtfulness, and a willingness to stare reality right in the face.

I wish I could find a few more to add to my little list.

“I find it impossible to take a detached, impartial look at the landscape and maintain a stoic temperament…”

I will up the ante on all of this.

I was pretty much totally+totally apolitical up until about 5 years ago. And quite honestly: very happy for it as well.

Then sometime in 1999 I heard the Republican candidate for president speak on the teevee. In an instant his mannerisms and speech reviled me. He was obviously a brute, and I wondered, was America actually going to elect such a unpolished creature as this?

Even so… I remained apolitical.

Then came the stolen election… I was glued to NPR.
And then… the run up to Iraq occurred.
The amassing of troops on the borders of that country.
And all my apathy left me in a sullen rush.
This little rich bitch kid… this proud anti-intellectual… was actually itching to START an unprovoked war!

Ever since then… I’ve been a firebrand.
My rhetoric has been fierce.
My purpose: To galvanize the dimocrats to a brighter burn.
That has been my chosen role to play in all of this.
Let others bring calm logic and strong arguments…
I would use a gift that was given me: an acid pen.
And so it was.

But once this is over,
Once we are out of Iraq…
Once the dimwit B is dust-binned, demoted, and demeaned…
You will never here from me again…
Because quite frankly…
My genius lies far far away from the gutter that is American politics.
And quite frankly I can’t wait to move on…

One of the tactics of the right has been to redefine language to demonize their opponents, and I’m wondering if that isn’t in part what folks here are struggling with a bit here. Since when is it partisan or immoderate to demand some measure of accountability from our elected officials? Or to expect good faith and rationality? Or resist attacks against the Constitution?

Granted, reality-based Americans have been hammered for so long that on occasion we’re a bit too quick to assume the worst of the right when doing so may not be entirely justified. But at least on this site and those CB mentioned, someone usually steps up to call us on it. If that isn’t moderate, I don’t know what is.

The alternative would seem to be something along the lines of “fair and balanced,” where people can say whatever they want, and no one stands up to defend truth against lies.

Like John Lennon, all I want is the truth — just gimme some truth.

I’m reminded of Jefferson’s words of wisdom: “The tree of Liberty must be Refreshed from time to time with the Blood of Patriots and Tyrants.”

This misbegotten administration and its enablers have forced a surreal condition upon the electorate. Some have responded by drinking the Kool-Aid of the neocons, others such as ourselves have been forced to confront the Abyss: “things really are as bad as they seem”.

Blogging is both a response to the surreal situation we confront and the precursor to action. Ultimately a loss of moderation can only be meaningful if positive results proceed from it. Ned Lamont’s victory in CT is this “loss of moderation” turned into action.

I am resigned to the fact that as long as there are progressive voices in this nation, we will have reactionary voices as well. It’s all about power. Who has it and who doesn’t; who uses it and how. This dichotomy has been present in this country from the outset. The infrastructure of our government favors neither but politics favors those who acquire and wield power. Our goal as progressives should be the acquisiton of this power and to use it in the service of our values. This is the only lesson to be taken from the current maelstrom. The self-conscious immoderation of this administration is a reflexive use of this power and it is this that has forced the “loss of moderation” upon us. To reiterate, as long as positive action proceeds from our own immoderation we will not fall victim to excess as this regime surely will.

I think that we all forget that a loudly proclaimed goal of the rightwingers is to move the center to the right. The problem with that concept is that rightwingers in this country are not large enough to legitimately claim that the center of the national political spectrum falls within their followings. But what their efforts have done is to radicalize even the center by making it feel as if it has been marginalized to the left.

I have despaired that all conservatives are creepy rightwing lunatics, but have recently let go of that belief. Reading the recent books by Kevin Phillips and John Dean, who proudly consider themselves conservatives, has shown me that conservatives of old – the ones who had real principles as well as respect for their fellow citizens – can engage in dialogue with the rest of us in a civil manner. I actually began to feel like a moderate again! But these crazy rightwingers allow for no dialogue and civil debate or disagreement with any of the rest of us – liberals, moderates, or civil, principled conservatives.

I’m not sure that one loses one’s moderation just because one acknowledges that the emperor has no clothes. Moderates are allowed to call ’em as they see ’em too. And sometimes – in fact, too many times – these crazy rightwingers are way out of bounds. They have caused my political views to liberalize, something I’m proud of. But the one point of moderation that I will always retain is the willingness to engage with others regardless of their political persuasion if they are willing to engage with me in a civil, respectful manner. I suspect that the same can be said for many of you too.

By the way, I’m reminded of someone’s comment in one of these blogs that the Connecticutt Democratic primary result was not a purge by the left wing but a revolt by the moderates. If you consider the strength of anti-war opinion in Connecticutt, that’s where the center is in that state. (Don’t even get me started on other issues in Connecticutt.)

Very good post, and excellent set of comments. I agree with much of what is written here. I used to think of myself as mildly right wing on foreign policy and mildly left wing on domestic policy, while always a Democrat. In ’03 I read sites like Little Green Footballs regularly, for what I thought was a more clear-minded approach to the situation in Iraq & the GWOT. I’d sometimes comment on ways I thought GWB was screwing things up, thinking they’d be sympathetic – and they were, somewhat, for a time, but as the ’04 election approached the scope for any criticism of Dear Leader collapsed to nothingness. And the refusal to confront reality became more stubborn. Now I’m as angry as anyone – at the war, at the screwups, at the arrogance, at America’s diminished standing in the world, at the whole pathetic tragic scary mess.

But the interesting question is: OK, what if we win? What if Democrats finally figure out how to translate America’s anger into votes, and we win in November, & maybe win in ’08 as well? Once policy debates become serious and reality-based again, we’ll discover that we actually have some pretty serious differences on policy. Will we go back to the nasty intrapartisan bickering that wasted Clinton’s first two years, and doomed Carter, and doomed LBJ? Or will we stay aware of the greater danger lurking to the right (they ain’t going away, folks), and treat each other with a spirit of respect, civility and compromise, and push forward on initiatives (a balanced budget, healthcare reform, education, a foreign policy based on interdependence rather than arrogance) we can all agree on?

I feel politically bipolar from the experiences I’ve undergone in the past 15 years, all of it driven by Republican politics.

I’d grown so disaffected by the process, by the vitriol of the Republican Party and by the bland non-opposition of the Democratic Party that I sat out my first Presidential election in 2000, convinced I was not being represented by anyone.

The rigged rush to war that began in the fall of 2002 reminded me how much can be lost – every principle of our society and thousands of lives – when our elected officials move from bland to evil. And that has made a disinterested 53 year old as passionate about politics as I’ve been since I was a naive 18 year old.

I’m certainly shriller than Josh, Kevin or you now, and I feel no need to apologize for it. Everything I love about this country’s endangered, imo, and I won’t be silenced unless the murderers and crooks I oppose put me on their hit list and kill me.Paranoid? No. Cognizant of the enemies of America within? Damn straight. I don’t fear them. I just see what they are.

CB-once again you’ve sounded a tone that resonates through the band of misfits, moonbats, and media marauders that constitute your readership (and among whom I proudly number myself-have you considered t-shirts? Hats?).
It appears that you’ve ignited a string of cathartic loss-of-(political) innocence stories. Here’s mine:

It’s a family tradition for my conservative/libertarian sis-in-law to visit on election night and stay up with me to watch the returns; good-naturedly ribbing each other as our respective favorites gain or lose in exit polls. Until Bush. It’s just not fun anymore.

In 1999, I raved to anyone who would listen that, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain!” I didn’t care who they voted for, so long as they voted. My own little grass-roots effort, naively planted in the belief that more voters would produce a better result. Boy, was I wrong.

The following February I saw in Bush’s eyes, for one second, a flash that said, “I’m in charge now, and I’m going to F@%$ you.” just before he smiled and started addressing Congress and the nation. Watch the tape. It’s there. At that point, though, I was still a moderate liberal who believed that the next election cycle would straighten out this silly-season phase.

I still can’t fully describe how it unraveled on September 11, 2001. Once I found out that my friends in Manhattan were still alive, once I realized that the attacks had stopped, and as I started to get past the wierd fear instilled by a sky bereft of aircraft; I started listening to the rhetoric coming out of DC. I started to realize just how dangerous this administration really is.

By 2003, my political discourse had become more partisan, and my battle cry was, “Anybody But Bush!”
It’s too late to make this long story short, but since the train wreck that returned Bush for a second term, I, like others in this string, have lost my ability to rationally discuss politics with most conservatives. I go from sadly rational to vitriolic raving moonbat 15 seconds after seeing any member of the Executive Branch appear in the media. My family makes me lie down with a cool towel on my forehead before making any political observation in my presence.

I pray for a return to those halcyon days when my only political fear was that I’d be pigeon-holed as a Democrat or a Republican. Alas, my fear is that they are lost forever.

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