Barnett gets political. And gets picked up by Instapundit, which gives him an instalanche.
When did Daily Kos turn from bully pulpit to just plain bully?
ARTICLE: "The Woman in the Middle: Moderate Democrat Is New Target of Liberal Bloggers," by Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald, Washington Post, 21 February 2007, p. A1.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) is targeted now by the Dems' emerging version of right-wing character assassination squads for such heinous positions as wanting to scale back the estate tax, tighten bankruptcy and promote free-trade agreements.
Frankly, I like all those positions and find that sort of approach nicely centrist.
But Kos and company want her gone as a "Lieberman in a pantsuit." Apparently, opposing Repubs isn't good enough for this increasingly extreme and intransigent crowd that's determined to conduct some rolling purge of the non-party-faithful.
Man, it's nice to see the worm turn so completely on that one! I swore I'd never see that sort of dogmatic nonsense on my side like I saw it emerge--almost insanely--on the Right during the Clinton years (what I assumed would be the never-again-scaled heights of sputtering irrational rage), but I was wrong. We've now achieved the perfect balance of intolerant pricks full of macho, posturing threats on both sides.
Here's my favorite from a guy whose ego left the universe sometime in recent months, the wordsmith terror known as Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, who really belongs in some left-wing dictatorship deep inside the Gap where he could spit out his threats with more elan (and, one presumes, force):
"Absolutely, we could take her out."
Can't you just see this guy making people disappear if you gave him the chance?
People who posture so extremely are typically the ones who, given the right circumstances, turn into monsters. I mean, on face value, can you see this guy with any real power he wouldn't abuse?
Who uses that sort of threatening language in this country in this day and age?
Somebody high on himself, that's who. Christ Almighty! When I think my ego's getting out of control and I need to chill, I just read up on these people to remind myself where this sort of talk takes you when you lose all sense of yourself. I really think that's why we always seem to find out these guys have a lot of self-destructive tendencies and addictions and mental-health issues. It's just not a healthy life to go around hating others like that so vehemently on a daily basis. Again, I just find this stuff creepy. Who raises these children? Where is their sense of shame?
I'd make a shitty dictator or commissar. Hell, I can't even stay mad at the cats for long. But we seem to suffer no shortage of these people nowadays, and the media just eats them up--goofy threats and all.
And watching it inside the Dems is more quease-inducing for this long-time student of the radical left. Look at history: when given the chance, the radical left kills and imprisons far more than the radical right. The right just want your money, the left always want your soul--or your life.
Sigh. So nice to see the language get so tough guy this early in the cycle.
Zuniga adds,
"We're creating real democracy."
Sounds like real demagoguery.
Chavez must have a spot for this guy. He's creating "real democracy" too, using similarly narrow litmus tests.
Why do these guys like Kos and Ralph Reed and the rest of them always get so drunk on themselves and start acting so creepy and intolerant the minute they gain the slightest pull over others? Where does their humanity go?
I'm not talking about not pushing hard or maintaining all the necessary ego for the fight. I'm talking that nasty, creepy, hate-filled sense or moral superiority that I associate with fascism and other over-the-top, emotionally distorted, authoritarian tendencies we normally link to retarded social development?
It's just so pathetically millennial.
Why does America so often nowadays see its politically ambitious types grow so power mad so fast?
It's just really depressing because it's so childish, in that devolving sort of way. Most of these people I wouldn't want anywhere near my kids. I feel dirty enough when they spew their bile here or wherever else I get posted. You just want to keep your distance from these types, like the nasty drunks in the bar or the impotent creeps who threaten your family.
These are sad days for the hard Left and hard Right. If I'm Giuliani, I'm seriously thinking of a third-party, Lieberman-like run if I can't get the GOP nod. Hard to see anyone else, except maybe aging McCain, having that kind of much-needed "gall" to stand up to the crazies on either side, but man, do we ever need a centrist third-party right now--I mean, Israel-bad!
Like Israel, we risk increasingly being ruled by these bullies on the extremes. We need some made-up-new-name party to just spring up and relieve the tension and intolerance these extremists breed. In Israel, it took a Nixon-goes-to-China guy like Ariel Sharon, who unfortunately was struck down by bad health just when his nation probably needed him most. But that's why I would assume it'll take somebody on the conservative side.
Sad to say, but it's getting to be that I don't know how anybody with a conscience would want to declare themselves for either party.
Why am I getting so intolerant of extremists? Why not just laugh them off and celebrate my inner O'Reilly/Maher?
Must be my enveloping middle years.
I just don't want that to be what I'm known for or what I stood for or what I left behind. I don't want to be ashamed of what I tried to do. I don't want my kids to wince inside when they remember me after I'm gone.
I wish more of these people felt that fear. I wish it would grab them every so often and cause them great pangs of self-doubt, forcing them to back down and dial down and tone down.
I just wish.
And the Net Roots thing is becoming such a huge disappointment to me. Instead of encouraging broad, thinking participation, it just comes off more and more like some unblinking mob that scary people manipulate.
Please, somebody convince me otherwise!
And puh-leeeze! No comments by anyone unless they read the entire article and all the parts about Tauscher voting record (F from NRA and 90 percent with Dems) and her average day (tell me this is "unresponsive") and how Kos dreams of breaking her in some queer, Orwellian way where she's well-behaved and doesn't even realize it.
It is, for a guy who spent years studying Stalinism, truly creepy.
Perhaps the scariest aspect to me of these developments is that Net Rootism is arguably the best mechanism yet for unleashing Madison's greatly feared factionalism. I mean, is there a better vessel for mobocracy? Do we not see the democratization of bullying--from middle schools right up to the halls of Congress?
Don't fret: unlike many analysts, I don't equate diagnosing the threat with its immediate ascendancy or the demise of that which I hold dear.
For when I go horizontal in my analysis, I get stronger.
And that, my friends, is why the commissars have always lost with their orthodoxy-preserving blinders.
And in the end, that must have been the bit in this Kos-v-Tauscher tale that triggered this post: I recoil whenever I sense the blinder-affixers approaching--no matter their stripe.
Kos comments
When Tom dissed Kos, I was afraid we'd have a firestorm of far left crazies coming over and commenting.
Instead, Instapundit linked the post and we got a flood of - how should I say - right-sympathetic commenters.
Instapundit's no comment policy blesses us once again.
While I'm at it, I'll link a couple other conservatives who picked up the story:
+ Daily Pundit ('I named the Blogosphere') continues to hate Bill Clinton and avers that Tom lives in a fantasy world.
+ Jay Reding, like most of the commenters on that thread, basically agreed.
Posted by Sean Meade
thomaspmbarnett.com |
