From: "Rich Gauszka" 


http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1630004,00.html
But the smart stuff is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often
witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the
blogosphere. Anyone who doesn't move in lockstep with the most extreme
voices is savaged and ridiculed-especially people like me who often agree
with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore
considered traitorously unreliable. Some of this is understandable: the
left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious,
disdainful-and politically successful-tone that right-wing radio talk-show
hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a
Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

And that is precisely the danger here. Fury begets fury. Poison from the
right-wing talk shows seeped into the Republican Party's bloodstream and
sent that party off the deep end. Limbaugh's show-where Dick Cheney
frequently expatiates-has become the voice of the Republican establishment.
The same could happen to the Democrats. The spitballs aimed at me don't
matter much. The spitballs aimed at Harman, Clinton and Obama are another
story. Despite their votes, each of those politicians believes the war must
be funded. (Obama even said so in his statement explaining his vote.) Each
knows, as Senator Jim Webb has said repeatedly, that we must be more
careful getting out of Iraq than we were getting in. But they allowed
themselves to be bullied into a more simplistic, more extreme position.
Why? Partly because they fear the power of the bloggers to set the debate
and raise money against them. They may be right-in the short (primary
election) term; Harman faced a challenge from the left in 2006. In the long
term, however, kowtowing to extremists is exactly the opposite of what this
country is looking for after the lethal radicalism of the Bush
Administration.

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