Never Ready To Make Nice

Rants about three things that disgust me - The Smirking Chimp: "...But even worse is how pro-actively self-defeating it all is. When we trumpet fringe opponents or movement obstacles, we validate those opponents and obstacles as legitimate mainstream voices, when they really are not. By giving any credence to conservative ideologues who are so wrong on the facts or pundits who are wildly out of touch with America, we tell the world that we believe these ideologues are generally important, further empowering these opponents for the future when they inevitably revert back to form. The only treatment fringe columnists like George Will deserve from progressives is derision. The only treatment brain dead power worshippers like Joe Klein deserve from progressives is ridicule (like that which Atrios regularly doles out). And the only treatment Republican operatives like Matt Dowd deserve from progressives is silence. None of them, no matter how they are once in a while correct, deserves any praise. To praise them is to praise the hitting prowess of a designated hitter who bats .051 just because you once saw him hit a single. We don’t do that in sports, and we shouldn’t do it in movement politics."