I haven’t read any of those publications, or listened to anyone from the extreme left factions, for something well beyond a long time. Do you really think, though, that The Nation represents the view of the mainstream Democratic party?
More than you would think. That's why commentators like Hewitt and Krauthammer are coining terms like "Moore's disease" and "Bush derangement syndrome" - a quite large contingent of normally sane Democrats have gone round the bend with regard to anything having to do with the Bush administration, and are willingly lapping up the bilge that Moore et. al. are feeding them. Among the Democratic delegates it was particularly pronounced, and 90% of them were following the Dean line against the Iraq war.
When interviewed, it came out that they are not against the war as you are against it. They're not against it because they think Iraq's a tar baby, as you do. No, they're against it because Iraq was "sovereign country" that "had done nothing to us" and "had no connection to 9/11" and the evil Bush administration just wanted to bomb them and used 9/11 as an excuse for a war that was not only unnecessary, but had no rationale whatsover.
What was Bush's reason for it then? Well this gets a bit murky (as you will know if you've heard the synopsis of 9/11), but it was definitely about ooooiiiilll and Halliburton and definitely for Israeli interests and the Saudis as well.
When faced with this grab-bag of perfectly incoherent ideas it becomes very difficult to have any kind of rational conversation. (Trust me, I run up against these ideas every day talking to people in Massachusetts. Oh I forgot, Bush is also a moron, but somehow a very cunning moron who gets his evil programs passed.)
A very large contingent of Democrats does not believe that radical Islam even exists in any shape that would qualify them as an "enemy". If it doesn't have divisions and tanks, it can't be a threat, that's the way they look at it. Besides, it's always wrong for America to use its military power, since the powerful are always wrong and weak are always right. They cannot believe in the existence of Bush's reasons for the war. I don't mean they can't agree with Bush's reasons, they simply cannot believe that Bush means what he says. It's all absurd lies from beginning to end in their view, so Bush must have ulterior motives. Must have, there's no other explanation. This makes them ripe pickings for a conspiracy-peddlar like Moore.
The Right and the Left are living in completely different world-views these days.
I don’t read columnists or bloggers at all. Can’t see why I should bother with the opinions of people who know no more about the issues than I do, and often know less. It seems strange to me that so many confuse blogs, which almost offer opinion, as a source of news. News and commentary are fundamentally different beasts, and that distinction needs to be maintained
Bwahahahahah! Have you been reading our newspapers? They are printing commentary all over the front pages. They just call it "news". The bloggers feel that since the newspapers have abdicated the provision of news, bloggers might as well fill the gap. They at least make no pretence of objectivity. I can't say I blame them. Certain bloggers, like Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, have become useful clearing-houses of breaking stories and interesting commentary.
Furthermore, it's wrongheaded to look at the qualifications of single bloggers in isolation. The medium improves the message in blogdom. The bloggers link to each other, connect postings, do research, and fact-check each other, which provides a continuous voting mechanism on the worth of any one post and its commentaries, which amounts to a de facto and extemely rapid collective grading and correction mechanism. Much to the distress of old media, they apply their mechanism to newspapers and tv as well, and show up the so-called professionals as dreadfully unprofessional on a daily basis. |
