Saturday, August 21, 2004
The Hammer and When to Swing It
Last fall, when Howard Dean was riding high in the presidential race [blogger inserts forlorn sigh here] and Al Franken was atop the best-seller list with his "Lying Liars" book, it was fashionable in wingnut circles to criticize "the angry left." Of all the bizarre charges aimed at our side by the wingnuts, this was one of the weirdest. The same people who attacked the Clintons with rhetoric of unparalleled viciousness were suddenly pronouncing themselves shocked at the tone of criticism being directed at Bush? Fact is, nobody does pissed-off like the Republicans do. They do it so well they've made it a governing strategy.
It's one thing to be politically angry at your political opponents. Such anger becomes more complicated when it involves real people looking each other in the eye. Last week, an old friend of mine discovered this blog and wrote a comment saying he was surprised that I was as liberal as I am, and furthermore, that he was a Bush supporter who hoped his man would be reelected. My reaction was not to think, "Well fuck you, then, and goodbye forever." It was instead to send him a private e-mail saying I hoped our political differences wouldn't make it impossible for us to have a beer when the occasion presented itself. From the tone of his reply, it won't be impossible. We can keep our differences in check enough to be civil. Similarly, The Mrs. has two friends she's known since childhood; her friends and their husbands are both conservative and religious. I'm pretty sure they're against most of what I stand for, and probably most of what The Mrs. stands for as well. (I'm guessing if either of them found this blog, they wouldn't let me near their children.) But we can have dinner together without needing to go to war.
Not everybody can do this. Gadflyer editor-in-chief Paul Waldman was on Fox News the other night with Brent Bozell of Accuracy in Media. They disagreed loudly over John Kerry's Vietnam service, but after the joint appearance was over, Waldman figured the confrontation was over as well. But he was wrong. Waldman notes that modern conservative politics is intimately bound up with anger, and impossible to separate from it:
Last fall, when Howard Dean was riding high in the presidential race [blogger inserts forlorn sigh here] and Al Franken was atop the best-seller list with his "Lying Liars" book, it was fashionable in wingnut circles to criticize "the angry left." Of all the bizarre charges aimed at our side by the wingnuts, this was one of the weirdest. The same people who attacked the Clintons with rhetoric of unparalleled viciousness were suddenly pronouncing themselves shocked at the tone of criticism being directed at Bush? Fact is, nobody does pissed-off like the Republicans do. They do it so well they've made it a governing strategy.
It's one thing to be politically angry at your political opponents. Such anger becomes more complicated when it involves real people looking each other in the eye. Last week, an old friend of mine discovered this blog and wrote a comment saying he was surprised that I was as liberal as I am, and furthermore, that he was a Bush supporter who hoped his man would be reelected. My reaction was not to think, "Well fuck you, then, and goodbye forever." It was instead to send him a private e-mail saying I hoped our political differences wouldn't make it impossible for us to have a beer when the occasion presented itself. From the tone of his reply, it won't be impossible. We can keep our differences in check enough to be civil. Similarly, The Mrs. has two friends she's known since childhood; her friends and their husbands are both conservative and religious. I'm pretty sure they're against most of what I stand for, and probably most of what The Mrs. stands for as well. (I'm guessing if either of them found this blog, they wouldn't let me near their children.) But we can have dinner together without needing to go to war.
Not everybody can do this. Gadflyer editor-in-chief Paul Waldman was on Fox News the other night with Brent Bozell of Accuracy in Media. They disagreed loudly over John Kerry's Vietnam service, but after the joint appearance was over, Waldman figured the confrontation was over as well. But he was wrong. Waldman notes that modern conservative politics is intimately bound up with anger, and impossible to separate from it:
Much has been made of liberals' anger at President Bush, and that anger is certainly real. But if Bush loses in November, that anger will dissipate. You'll be able to find liberals angry about one issue or another at one time or another, but you won't find them simmering with a generalized fury. But many conservatives remain angry, even at the height of their power. They'll be angry if Bush loses, and they'll be angry if he wins.Blogroll Note: At the suggestion of reader TK, I've added Atrios' Eschaton to the blogroll on the right side of this page. It's the home of Friday Cat Blogging, and of solid analysis the rest of the time. For the last couple of days, Atrios has been all over conservative pundit Michelle Malkin's recent faceoff with Chris Matthews over Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In a post yesterday afternoon, Atrios got the Quote of the Day, calling Malkin "a rising young harpy with the face of a stewardess and the analytical skills of a tack hammer, although possessed of considerably less charm."
