Political Blog Pop Quiz
Pop quiz blogging hotshot.
1. What political blog titled a recent post Babbling Bush?
The Huffington Post
Daily Kos
Powerline
MyDD
Michelle Malkin
2. What political writer recently wrote the following in a post: "[William F.] Buckley's idiocy is another reason..."?
Arriana Huffington
Frank Rich
Michelle Malkin
Maureen Dowd
George Will
The answers are here and here.
*****
So here's my problem. I have no problem with conservatives debating fellow conservatives when they disagree on different issues. Those who pay attention know there are many sub-veins of conservative thought: libertarianism, neo-conservativism, isolationism, religious conservatism, traditionalism, realism, and the various forms of fiscal conservativism are all among the mix. These folks, while agreeing on 60% to 80% of the issues almost out of hand, will butt heads now and then on the 40% to 20% when they don't agree. There is nothing wrong with this.
Exercise is literally the temporary tearing of muscle tissue, with the ensuing healing process creating a stronger muscle. Such is constructive intra-conservative debate -- a temporary tearing of relations that ultimately leads to a stronger conservative argument.
Malkin probably agrees with President Bush philosophically on the issues 60% to 80% almost out of hand. Yet she reverts to fangs-bared aggression and ridicule on one of the few issues they disagree on. And for any conservative to call something that William F. Buckley writes as idiocy is just egregiously disrespectful nonsense considering what he means to both conservative thought and its current ascendancy. Wrong is fair game, horribly wrong on an occasion or two, but idiocy... No way.
Ms. Malkin's site is one that I found early while blogging, and it is a good clearing house, along with other large sites like Instapundit, Powerline, and Ace of Spades, for news and opinion if you lean to the right, so I will continue to click over now and then. But just because I agree with a position she holds, does not mean I will condone the means in which she gets across that mutually-shared position. If anything, it will lead me to question it.
She needs to realize that the frothing tone and disrespect she exhibits to those who are (or should be) her political and ideological allies are actually worse than the frothing tone and disrespect engaged in by the Kos Kids and HuffPo addicts, because it repels those with basically good sense, folks whom she should want to be attracting, no matter their actual beliefs.
1. What political blog titled a recent post Babbling Bush?
The Huffington Post
Daily Kos
Powerline
MyDD
Michelle Malkin
2. What political writer recently wrote the following in a post: "[William F.] Buckley's idiocy is another reason..."?
Arriana Huffington
Frank Rich
Michelle Malkin
Maureen Dowd
George Will
The answers are here and here.
*****
So here's my problem. I have no problem with conservatives debating fellow conservatives when they disagree on different issues. Those who pay attention know there are many sub-veins of conservative thought: libertarianism, neo-conservativism, isolationism, religious conservatism, traditionalism, realism, and the various forms of fiscal conservativism are all among the mix. These folks, while agreeing on 60% to 80% of the issues almost out of hand, will butt heads now and then on the 40% to 20% when they don't agree. There is nothing wrong with this.
Exercise is literally the temporary tearing of muscle tissue, with the ensuing healing process creating a stronger muscle. Such is constructive intra-conservative debate -- a temporary tearing of relations that ultimately leads to a stronger conservative argument.
Malkin probably agrees with President Bush philosophically on the issues 60% to 80% almost out of hand. Yet she reverts to fangs-bared aggression and ridicule on one of the few issues they disagree on. And for any conservative to call something that William F. Buckley writes as idiocy is just egregiously disrespectful nonsense considering what he means to both conservative thought and its current ascendancy. Wrong is fair game, horribly wrong on an occasion or two, but idiocy... No way.
Ms. Malkin's site is one that I found early while blogging, and it is a good clearing house, along with other large sites like Instapundit, Powerline, and Ace of Spades, for news and opinion if you lean to the right, so I will continue to click over now and then. But just because I agree with a position she holds, does not mean I will condone the means in which she gets across that mutually-shared position. If anything, it will lead me to question it.
She needs to realize that the frothing tone and disrespect she exhibits to those who are (or should be) her political and ideological allies are actually worse than the frothing tone and disrespect engaged in by the Kos Kids and HuffPo addicts, because it repels those with basically good sense, folks whom she should want to be attracting, no matter their actual beliefs.
posted by Lee | 12:14 PM
7 Comments:
Nice post Lee. Another blogger named Lee thinks blogging should be like Thunderdome. It shows in his blog too. Shame.
In the worldview of the Left, opposition comes only from the deluded and the depraved. It's a pity that Malkin and Coulter provide so much evidence of the latter.
Civility in all walks of life is getting to be about as quaint and antiquated as the doilies on Aunt Matilda's couch back. How can civility survive in an "It's ALL about ME!" world?
Lee:
I have never been to your blog before but I found your sentiments on civility extremely refreshing and well "grounded." Nice work.
David
Malkin is a Coulter wannabe
Ah, Michelle Malkin. She's still considered one of the biggies of the right side of the blogosphere, but I got sick of her shrillness after the Harriet Miers and Dubai flameouts.
I've been less than enamored of Ann Coulter as well, lately. Of course, sometimes when I state this on a conservative forum, I sometimes get a reply that implies that people who don't like Coulter (not for what she says, but for the loose-cannon attention-whore rhetoric she sometimes uses to say it) are pansies who've been pussywhipped by the limpwristed liberals. I suppose I could strike back by implying that people who like Ann Coulter for her smashmouth style are thugs who'd punch their own mothers in the face if they had no one else to pick a fight with, but that's not my style. It's not my style because, on the whole, I really don't enjoy fighting.
It seems that much of the political blogosphere consists of people who enjoy fighting -- not debating, not competition, but what you described -- bare-fanged rhetoric that paints people with a different opinion as the enemy. I'm talking about Ann Coulter implying that if the Democrats regain power in November, Bush's impeachment would make a fine consolation prize because of his stance on immigration. I still vote Republican, but some days I just don't want to read the blogs. I used to read them several times a day. I don't like the Paul-Begala-like spirit that seems to be settling into my side of the political aisle.
(Found your site through a link on Instapundit, which I found through Hugh Hewitt.)
I, too am a new visitor who is favorably impressed and will be back. I can think of 4 possible explanations for Malkin's behavior. 1) Maybe as suggested above it is a cold blooded attempt to copy Coulter's self-promotion style - not good. 2) Could be combat fatigue.Maybe she has been vituperatively attacked so often that she has started to automatically go into junk-yard dog mode instead of being critical in a reasonable way; 3) Both the links you provide deal with immigration which is definitely where one of her gorilla buttons is - also not good; 4) Maybe she is turning into an authoritarian - sometimes inappropriately confused with "liberal" (the 2 are at opposite ends of the scale when it comes to things like tolerance, logic, ....)-certainly not good and always indicative of the end of sanity. The only way to diagnose this condition is to get Glenn Reynolds to write something mildly critical about her. If Glenn the Gentlemen can get her foaming at the mouth, that's a certain symptom she is joining the dark side.
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