From: Gary Britt 

When Joe Klein says something bad about the left.  You know it must be
really bad.  Because Klein is an idiot for the left.

Gary

Rich Gauszka wrote:
> 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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