Somebody Pinch Me!
Richard Cohen continues his recent roll with a blistering counterattack on the Kos Kidz and other worshippers at the feet of Saint Colbert:
I wrote about Stephen Colbert and his unfunny performance at the White House Correspondents’ dinner.
Kapow! Within a day, I got more than 2,000 e-mails. A day later, I got 1,000 more. By the fourth day, the number had reached 3,499 — a figure that does not include the usual offers of nubile Russian women or loot from African dictators. The Colbert messages began with Patrick Manley (“You wouldn’t know funny if it slapped you in the face”) and ended with Ron (“Colbert ROCKS, you MURDER”) who was so proud of his thought that he copied countless others. Ron, you’re a genius.
… What to make of all this? First, it’s not about Colbert. His show has an audience of about 1 million — not exactly “American Idol” numbers. Second, it marks the end of a silly pretense about interactive media: We give you our e-mail addresses and then, in theory, we have this nice chat. Forget about it. Not only is e-mail too often a kind of epistolary spitball, but there’s no way I can even read the 3,506 e-mails now backed up in my queue — seven more since I started writing this column.
But the message in this case truly is the medium. The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred. This spells trouble — not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out Hillary!) I have seen this anger before — back in the Vietnam War era. That’s when the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.
The hatred is back. I know it’s only words now appearing on my computer screen, but the words are so angry, so roiled with rage, that they are the functional equivalent of rocks once so furiously hurled during anti-war demonstrations. They hurt in a different way.
I can appreciate some of it. Institution after institution failed America — the presidency, Congress and the press. They all endorsed a war to rid Iraq of what it did not have. Now, though, that gullibility is being matched by war critics who are so hyped on their own sanctimony that they will obliterate distinctions, punishing their friends for apostasy and, by so doing, aiding their enemies. If that’s going to be the case, then Iraq is a war its critics will lose twice — once because they couldn’t stop it, and once more at the polls.
There is a definite backlash growing against the hateful venom spewed by Jane Hamsher, the Huff’n'Puff gang, and other denizens of the Nutroots®. There may be hope for the Democrats yet. Cast the ‘progressives’ out – they’ve got nowhere to go, and they’re polluting your souls…
Comrades,
The same situation existed in the 1860 election cycle, where firebrands on the Democrat’s side refused to compromise and ended up giving the election to Lincoln. It’s a cycle that continuously repeats itself because the various factions on the left can’t seem to communicate with eachother, or to even share a similar vision of what their party should be.
Certainly there are differences within the GOP as well, however there seems to be a greater amount of willingness to cooperate within those various factions than exists on the left.
Perhaps it is what happens when you band together a large number of single-issue groups and try to draw from them a cohesive platform. It just isn’t going to work.
I hoestly believe that the Democrats would do better if they cast off the KosKids and the like and started over. Yeah, it’d take longer to win a significant number of seats, but they would be a stronger, more united party with an understandable message and a single voice. Right now, it’s just a mob hollering for blood, and that frightens the locals.
Respects,
Gwedd
You know what the difference is, between the extreme left and the extreme right? It’s that the extreme right is not just tolerated, but embraced by the Republicans. It’s the opposite with the extreme left. People like Grover Norquist and Pat Robertson are embraced, powerful figures, even still, despite everything that’s happened. And as Mark is so wont to point out, the lefty blogosphere doesn’t have too much influence at all.
I don’t know how embraced the extreme right is – but maybe I’m projecting my own feelings…
I do know, however, that John Kerry, Russ Feingold, John Conyers, and many others actually post on and associate themselves explicitly with Daily Kos and the Huffington Post – check your assumptions here, Fargus, methinks they’re faulty…
“You know what the difference is, between the extreme left and the extreme right? It’s that the extreme right is not just tolerated, but embraced by the Republicans.”
Which explains why the poster-boy for the Angry Left is running the DNC and the White House goes out of its way to condemn remarks made by Pat Robertson. And the White House sure did listen to Pat Robertson when he relayed what “God told him would happen in Iraq.” When questioned about the remarks of Robertson or Falwell, the White House usually either actively condemns them or laughs them off. Not so with Kos. As Mark pointed out, the leaders of the party readily embrace the Far Left. Any Dem who wants to be president in 2008 has to pander to the Kos Kids (just look at the list of who voted against Chief Justice Roberts if you want proof of that).
Not to mention the old poster boy of the extreme right for the Republicans – Pat Buchanan – was pretty much run out of the party.
I’m not sure about the influence of the Angry Left on the Democrats. It’s certainly not as strong as they like to tell themselves, but on the other hand, the more moderate Democrats do seem to toss them raw meat from time to time, so the Kossacks don’t devour them instead. Whether that makes any real difference at the policy level is something we won’t know until the Democrats regain power.
But regaining power will probably be made more difficult if the public sees the party as one not where the moderates have “embraced” the far left, but one where the far left has taken over. Every time Kos crows about his mighty DLC-zapping power, I think the Democrats get weakened.
Dean is the poster boy of the Angry Left? Then McCain is what, just a Straight Talker®? Did you even see the petulant public letter he wrote to Barack Obama? Seen how he’s embracing Falwell in order to try to have a chance in the Republican primary?
The Dems in 2004 didn’t pander to any of the kos folks to get elected, as evidenced by the existence of the website http://www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com. All of the lefty blogs thought his campaign was terrible, but followed it closely.
Just because Conyers and Kerry post on progressive sites does not make them progressive (and just because a site calls themselves progressive doesn’t mean they’re progressive either). Feingold is progressive without pandering to the kossacks. If you think Feingold is “pandering” that’s fine, but do you think McCain is pandering when talking at Falwell’s “institution”? I think it’s politicking. Whatever. Semantics I guess.
I disagree with Fargus in that I think both sides embrace their extreme members because that’s what political parties are all about, embrace anyone that stands up for the party. That is the value of a political party when someone can go “wow, that guy is way out there, but I’ll vote for him anyway because he stands for some of my ideals, even if not all of them”. That’s the whole point.
The left and right are both angry. They both need to get over themselves, have a beer, and become a good government because right now all the partisan bickering is getting the country nowhere.
Also, Mark, the emails Richard Cohen is receiving are not progressives, they’re from idiots on the extreme that lack common decency. Don’t try to paint them as “progressives”. Although, there are jerks in every section of the political spectrum, but the emails Richard is receiving is because the people are jerks, not because they are progressive.
“Did you even see the petulant public letter he wrote to Barack Obama?
Strike as non – responsive here. The Obama fracas was a minor dust – up, and had nothing to do with the extreme right of the GOP. As for Falwell, McCain is just following the Reagan doctrine, whereas he says all the right things, and then totally ignores them when he wins the election. Reagan’s recently released notes from his library confirm this strategy.
The GOP has tarred and feathered these guys so often after they make imbecilic statements that they often look like the San Diego Chicken with a bad hair day.
Let’s not forget the past here – McCain loathes the fundy crowd – actions speak louder than words:
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/elec8.htm
The Dems need a Sister Soljah moment, and they need it now. Whatever one may think of Clinton, give him credit for making the good Rev. Jackson fume in public while he upbraided one of his proteges’. The unmistakable message sent was that this was indeed a new Democratic party – one that would not allow the lunatics to run the asylum.
mike, when I say ‘progressive’ in quotes, just FYI (and I should make it explicit from time to time), I’m not talking progressive in reality, but ‘progressive’ in self-labelling – and if you’ve ever looked at the Nation, Mother Jones, and yes, Kos and firedoglake and other sites and magazines that apply the label to themselves – well, from where I’m sitting, they’re pretty extreme…
Mark,
Apologies for not recognizing the quotation marks. Point taken.
I agree the Nation and Mother Jones (I no longer read them regularly) are extreme, but I think kossacks and the “nutroots” as you like to say are generally middle of the road libs. The ones that are vocal and talk loudly are the idiots that get shi**y with Cohen. The only reason I think there is a difference is because dailykos is such a large community. It contains many very close to the middle. I think Markos himself is fairly extreme, but not as extreme on the left as, say, Michelle Malkin is on the right.
On an unrelated topic, and to complete a thought from a previous thread, check out this slate article in which Hitchens says:
“Assume that the Iranians are within measurable distance of nuclear status. Appearances sometimes to the contrary, they are not mad—or not clinically insane in the way that Saddam Hussein was and Kim Jong-il is. The recent fuss about the obliteration of Israel is largely bullshit: Ayatollah Khomeini’s call for this has been intoned pedantically and routinely ever since he first uttered it, and it only got attention this year because of the new phenomenon of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the scrofulous engineer who acts the part of civilian president for his clerical bosses. These people (who once bought weapons from Israel via Oliver North in order to fight Saddam Hussein) are cynical and corrupt. They know as well as you do what would happen if they tried to nuke Israel or the United States. They want the bomb as insurance against invasion and as a weapon of strategic ambiguity to shore up their position in the region.”
I’m pretty sure that is fairly close to what I was arguing in that same thread. I got this info from here.
Thanks for the Hitchens tip, I missed it – I’ll read it ASAP…
Mike, it seems to me that if you read the comments in Kos, it’s not hard to find a tidal wave of extreme angry left types there, pretty much the equivalent of what you’d see in Mother Jones, but perhaps with more cursing. Those are exactly the kinds of loudmouths who launch waves of attacks on guys like Richard Cohen, who is the furthest thing from a Bush lapdog, for failing to hew to the party line. Sure, it’s a big community and you can find all types, but the rabble rousers seem to dominate discussion.
I’d also add that throwing a few rhetorical bones to the far right — McCain speaking to Falwell, or Bush mentioning the Federal Marriage Amendment once in the 2005 State of the Union — is all style and little substance. Seriously, what in McCain’s voting record indicates that he is on the far right or that even panders to them, aside from the occassional cheap word? Unlike Republicans, the Democrats pander to the far left with their votes. So in which party do the extremists hold the greatest influence?
…”but I think kossacks and the “nutroots” as you like to say are generally middle of the road libs.”
In your dreams, perhaps. Try debating them on the actual merits of their arguments – try taking a “moderate” stance like I have at numerous times in the past, and watch the bile start flying in your direction, immediately. Many of them even contacting me by e – mail to spew more of their spittle, just in case I missed their rants on the site itself. Pure class.
They’re a bunch of trolls, plain and simple. You can find the same idiocies on the other side, over at Freepers.com. But Freepers has an almost non – existent traffic count, so it’s not even a fair analogy.
As for Coulter, she’s ridiculed daily at all of the main conservative blogs and papers, starting at the WSJ, Weekly Standard, and even LGF.
Dennis, I agree that the discussion on kos and atrios and the like are weak, but I don’t comment on sites that have 900 responses (like Atrios) because there is no point. There is no “discussion” at all. I think the commenting people are bored and have nothing better to do, but there are those of us who poke by to read the posts and then leave to find other shiny objects. I don’t even read their comments anymore. When I read “kossacks” or “Nutroots” on this site, I usually read this as the contributors to the site and everyone that visits it, not just the commenters. I would guess the majority don’t comment on the site as no good discussion can be had from 900 one-liners as is typical of many of the posts at Atrios or Kos.
Aaron, we could go back and forth about pandering with votes all day, but it will not prove anything. Both sides pander. The left thinks the right does it more, the right thinks the left does it more. It’s a silly discussion that can’t be proved. Meanwhile, those of us in the middle (me) just sit back and marvel at the asinine bickering and wonder why we came up with political parties in the first place (Washington warned us…).
I will gladly mothball McCain. Though the man is sometimes pitching into my wheelhouse, I’m certain it is accidental. I don’t think he really has much in the way of a governing philosophy. As for Mad Howard, well, if the very existence of McCain is to ameliorate the partisan weight of the Kossacks and Dr. D we have to analyze some very different fauna here. McCain is elected statewide in AZ. While he is popular enough in the party at large he is most definitely NOT with the leadership. (Also baffling here, minutes ago McCain was the dashboard saint for the antis; the martyred uncle of the primaries and the first victim of BushCo but maybe I’m behind the curve.) Dr. Dean was elected head of the DNC by a nice wide pastiche of Dem insider bigwigs and that, of course, was with an oh-so self concious nod to the Nutters described above. Dean is explicitly a bone for the base and as such he speaks quite accurately I think, on their behalf. Let’s find some similar figure on the Right that has said, to the effect “I hate Democrats and everything they stand for.” or “Most Democrats have never worked an honest day in their lives.” Do so and I shall denounce such boobery without recourse to “Hey, the other guys do that, too!” Get to work on that, fellas. I’ll get comfy.
Assuming hate turns people off, is there anything the left can do to turn off the hate? Or is this train heading for a cliff?
Yeah, Scott, absolutely, the left can ignore the voices of hate and function like a loyal opposition – and I’m happy to report that a large portion of them seem prepared to do just that…
Mark, quick thought about the left from someone in the middle. I think it is true there are extreme lefties that are trying to dictate policy in economic affairs, but there are also extreme righties present trying to dictate policy in terms of social affairs. What I find so hard to manage is that I agree with much of the left’s social policies (allowing gays to marry, allowing abortions to occur, teaching people actual information about getting pregnant and what you can do to prevent this or plan this better) I disagree with many of their economic free spending policies. I think I value personal freedom more than whether or not I have a few more thousand dollars in my pocket per year and that is why I voted Kerry. It is probably why I’ll vote Democrat in most elections (less an actual “independent” is allowed to run again – we really ought to encourage more independent candidates as they push the envelop in terms of the discussion that is had in the debates. Say what you want about Perot, but he certainly changed the discussion and made it slightly interesting), until a Republican actually says “you know what, gay marriage is none of my business. If they want to get married, we should honor that and accept it, Jesus would have, just as he accepted greed and prostitutes, etc”. I’m not talking about empty gestures either. I think many on the left are very serious about keeping the government out of my personal business and that is what turns many progressives I know onto the Democratic party, even though both parties are full of political whores.