The Religious Left,

Or, If You Want To Know What a Rabid Is Up To, Listen to What He's Saying While He's Pointing at Someone Else.


Glenn Reynolds, citing Marshall Wittman:

While Greenwald suggests that "loyalty" to Bush is the requirement for the right, the standard to to be a member in good standing of the liberal/left community is hatred of Bush. The Moose opposes most of the economic agenda of the Administration. However, he critically supports the President in the war on terror - including the NSA program. This has won the Moose the visceral opprobrium of the left. Because in the left wing universe, one must oppose everything the President supports. The truth is that a good part of the left believes that George W. Bush is a greater threat to America than Osama bin Laden.

This is what I've taken to calling a "faith-based argument." It's not that the so-called War on Terror has been mismanaged, or that we invaded a country based on cherry-picked intelligence and money earmarked for that war has gone right into the pockets of Bush supporters, or that the economy no longer serves the majority of workers, or that Bush has displayed open contempt for constitutional guarantees of individual liberty, not to mention the balance of powers. Nope. It's that the left has a deep-seated and unreasoning hatred of a complete nonentity who has failed at everything he's ever done. There's the whole problem.

I have sad news: there are many, many people who don't hate Bush and still think he's a complete nightmare in the White House, just based on the record of the past five years. Look at the numbers.

Megan McArdle's comments, from the same post (I actually recommend that you read the original comments at Asymmetrical Information. It's a very interesting post, and not nearly so partisan as Reynolds' quote would have us believe. I still don't agree with it entirely):

[Ann Althouse], and Instapundit (who is also being singled out for opprobrium), have criticized the administration; it's just that when they criticize the administration, it's in a tone of "The Bush administration is doing something I don't like", rather than "The Great Satan is again unleashing the powers of Hell to destroy a Once Great Nation." I haven't noticed her, or Instapundit, criticising the administration's conduct of the WOT, but--I'm going out on a limb here--maybe that's because they generally agree with it, not because they're "apologists" for the administration.

OK -- If you agree with the administration and support its policies publicly and often, then you are by definition an "apologist," particularly if, as McArdle states, you refrain from criticizing the conduct of the war, when it is obviously inept and ill planned. How many people who disagree with the policies are doing the same? Duh.

Oh, and please note the "Great Satan" mantra again. That's just way too easy. It's as though Michael Moore were the only person on the left. Hell, I'm not even particularly left, by any classic definition, and I think Bush is a disaster across the board. Of course, I tend to do things like look at evidence. We all know where that leads -- godless liberalism.

And then there's just bald assertion (this from an op-ed that Reynolds wrote for The Guardian, which is itself very interesting):

The language of righteousness and sin, if not that of redemption and grace, remains a hallmark of the purportedly secular left, though I find it no more attractive than the language of the religious right.

I don't fit into the religious right or the religious left. But, in America, you don't get to choose a major political party that does not have some sort of religious strain to it.

I wish I had emoticons on this blog. This one would be called "jawdrop." There's a certain level of internal coherence, along with some point of contact with reality, that I expect before I will even subject a statement to scrutiny. This one is nowhere near. Let's just take it as a given that religiosity is a hallmark of American thought. I mean, remember who the first European settlers were (at least, the ones we've mythologized). To ascribe something like that to the left (in a comment on Hillary Clinton, who is, if I may use the term, the right's new avatar of Satan Incarnate) is really -- let's be moderate -- special pleading. And somehow, describing the values of the Puritans as akin to those of the left is stretching it a bit. I may do another post on this article itself, it's so full of holes. An argument based on elision.

All this is via Andrew Sullivan, whose own comments are equally fuzzy.

No right-wing group has picketed a book-signing with posters depicting my face behind the cross-hairs of a gun, as the gay left did. No one on the right has gone nuclear on my private life, as the gay left did. No one on the right has threatened to find me in Ptown and split my skull open, or called me the anti-Christ, as some on the gay left have. Yes, I get homophobic hate mail from the right all the time; and many conservative blogs have blackballed or slimed or smeared me in various ways. But that's, sadly, what you get for being provocative and opinionated on the web.

In other words, it's OK if the right is homophobic, because that's what we expect from them. However, to feel a sense of betrayal because Sullivan has supported (until recently) the most overtly homophobic administration in history is unacceptable. On the other hand, I suppose the gay community is supposed to support Sullivan no matter what, just because he's out.

Lord, what fools these mortals be.

And please note, while reading through Sullivan's post, how the "religious left" suddenly becomes the "gay left." The two by no means share an identity. Scam artists call it a "bait-and-switch."

In point of fact, one reason the left has been so ineffectual in the past decade or two is that they are too reasonable. The left, as a group, tend to rely on rational arguments, evidence, free inquiry. That puts them dangerously close to the philosophy of the Founders, come to think of it. But of course, when the left even hints at adopting tactics of the far right, there's a ready-made group of attack poodles (I still love that term) ready to start barking. Just because commentators like Reynolds, McArdle, and Sullivan have reputations for some degree of moderation doesn't mean they don't have their heads up their butts on certain issues -- for example, the Iraq war. Yes, it's a fait accompli at this point, and there's really no point in might-have-beens, but to justify the methods used to drag us into this on the basis that it was "necessary" is a little much (it was not in the least necessary from any rational standpoint), particularly when they are seemingly symptomatic of a very troubling attitude in the administration as a whole. (OK, OK, so they don't claim to investigate first causes. I do. I am also, in case you were wondering, an artist, which in this context simply means that I put things together that other people might not recognize as belonging together. The Blog as Collage.)

I will hand Sullivan one point: I think he is a man of principle, and I think his record shows it. The cognitive disjunct comes from expecting the extremes to have any respect for that.

I am still waiting for a fiscally responsible, socially progressive centrist to gain some prominence, from either party. We've got Judy Baar Topinka in Illinois, whom I sincerely hope will be our next governor -- she's the only Republican who managed to stay in office in the last election, and she's good.

In the meantime, I read stuff like this and just have to laugh, even though it's coming from a group of commentators that I respect highly. It's that or drink a lot. Unfortunately, I'm in non-drinking mode lately, so laughter it is.