That was the title of a post from Michelle Malkin on October 27, 2008 in which she added,
It would be another sign of “insane rage” and “violent escalation of rhetoric.” And: RAAAAAAACISM.
But string up a mannequin of Sarah Palin from a rope, and it’s just all in good Halloween fun.
Well, wonder no more, Michelle, because one such effigy* was recently found in Plains, Georgia, home of 39th United States President Jimmy Carter. The reaction from the vast liberal media conspiracy? What response there has been (not a front pager, this one) has stuck to, uh, just the facts, ma’am.
Meanwhile, Instapundit author Glenn Reynolds’ proof positive image of Obama’s haughty condescension has set the blogosphere alight with speculation and debate while the Rush Limbaugh death watch has PoliGazzette’s Jason Arvak sounding the death knell for relevance, focus, and seriousness in political blogging (due exception to the League noted),
And people wonder why fewer and fewer people even bother to write for the blogosphere any more. What’s the point? It’s all just scripts and sharp-elbowed attacks these days. Relatively few bloggers care about anything but somehow “winning” in their hate-war against those who disagree, and the very few who try to sustain some kind of real discourse get shouted down or, more commonly, just plain shunned by the systematic refusal of links.
In 2009, just four short days ago, I probably would have been right there with Jason in shaking my head about all of the above stories and the range of reactions to them, but a ten day blogging sabbatical complete with time to reflect on just what the hell I do on a day-to-day basis at this very site has yielded a slightly different response. I think we need to stop running through the agonized shirt tearing about the ridiculousness of the political blogosphere every time the antics of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Al Franken, or Keith Olbermann take centre stage and reconcile ourselves to a hard truth: this is our politics.
The problem here is less about the blogosphere itself, as it is with the melodramatic and wild-eyed nature of modern political discourse itself. We, of course, like to look back on those times of great political momentum and undertaking and opine that if only our current state of affairs could be more like it was back then. The problem being that in doing so we also allow ourselves the concession of filtering out all the craziness that accompanied those momentous occasions and holding in our steady gaze the grace of unfettered and decontextualized singular gestures. It’s an ignoramus’ bliss to think that there hasn’t with every great political moment, accompanied a cacophony of head-shaking-eye-rolling craziness. If the blogosphere has done anything, and the blogosphere has done a lot of things, it has given that crazy a megaphone that simultaneously amplifies its message — admittedly — but also exposes its contortions to light the light of day.
In short, the blogosphere didn’t create this craziness in our politics, it simply showed us just how prevalent it is. And if we really care about political discourse and political outcomes, then we would do well not to turn our heads in disgust and the hopes that out of sight and out of mind really does lead some kind of real change and face the fact that our passion means we choose to operate in this swamp of possibilities. This “freak show”, as Jason I think aptly describes it, is precisely what we’re signing up for and we’d best be clear about that if we want to avoid toiling away at our own castles in the sand.
Besides, contra Jason’s suggestion that people just aren’t bothering anymore, it seems like blog readership and participation are on the rise and seem to show no signs of abating. And while it is true that the sharp-elbow approach of political blogging makes it more akin to a full-contact sport than a college debate, we should remind ourselves that utilizing too broad a brush means we miss the good that comes with the bad. For all Andrew Sullivan’s bluster over Sarah Palin that Jason refers to distastefully (and I’ve done my fair share of public condemnation), it is worth noting that we have also received the best coverage of the happenings in Iran from Andrew’s outfit. For all the partisanship of Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias (and I honestly don’t fine them to be more or less partisan than most anyone else), you also get some of the most astute policy analysis on matters of health care and constitutional procedure out there that has received attention from both sides of political spectrum.
With the increase in noise, you get an increase in signal that results in more information being available to more people in a more engaging fashion than ever before. It only makes sense that the din which has always attended political sparring would get all the more rancorous given the necessity of those circumstances. And if the increase in polemics indicates, at very base, an increase in engagement of average individuals in matters political, even if I happen to find that engagement, like Jason, rather tiresome at times, I’ll take it. Democracy is a messy business and it runs on the fuel of participation. Sorting through the muck that results is, frankly, part of the job of caring and ultimately the more muck the greater the potential for those singular gestures of grace.
* As Think Progress notes, this isn’t actually the first such occurence.
Amy Tuteur, MD 
Russell Saunders 
Heidi 
Ryan Noonan 
Pierre Corneille 
darlene 
James Hanley 
Burt Likko
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As some blogs that I liked evolved into repetitious, in-jokey hate-fests, I found myself reading them less. They were invariably the most partisan (or ideological) blogs. Over time, I have found myself reading less ideological or partisan blogs, blogs with longer posts (which permit the blogger to develop an idea rather than merely blurt it out), and blogs where the posters have special knowledge of their subject. I come from the liberal side of blog readership, but have ended up reading some more conservative blogs that fit the above criteria in addition to liberal blogs. I don’t know how typical my journey as a blog reader has been, but I know it’s not unique. Indeed, it seems to me that the more intemperate blogs have declined in importance over time. (Although, this may be a subjective observation because I read them less and care less about what they say now.)
It’s the lack of irony that gets me.
To go in one breath from explaining how President Clinton is, in fact, the President and his office deserves respect that the opposition just are not giving and that is just *SHAMEFUL* to explaining how you have to understand that the people who are using the phrase “Bushitler” are legitimately angry and, perhaps, they aren’t expressing themselves artfully but the more important issue is the *CAUSE* of their anger rather than whether we should be dwelling on the oh-so-important issue of how free citizens may be non-violently expressing themselves in the public square, you free-speech hating fascist.
You even see this with the Republican Party and how they went from “big government conservativism” to “we need to balance the budget!” in the time that it took to change control of the White House (and, as I’ve said many times, Redstate’s Eric Erickson supported the Bush bailouts when they first arrived explaining to the fiscal conservatives that “people” were “hurting”).
This is, in no way, limited to this (or that) side of the aisle.
I do like how the internet caches things now.
I agree completely with the signal to noise argument here. But I’m not entirely comfortable with equating blogging with political “engagement”. It’s certainly intellectual engagement (well, at least, on occasion); but political participation is embodied, isn’t it? Or is that so 20th century? I mean, going to the town council meeting and ranting for your alloted five minutes is clearly engagement. But does that mean that posting the same rant on liberals-suck dot com is also engagement in the political process? I don’t know.
Quite true, Rufus. As a former town trustee and mayor I can attest to the fact that the blogosphere has given a stage to those who would never vent at a public meeting or zoning hearing but who gladly rant anonymously. I also agree that the fringe has always been there, I’m old enough to remember Bircher craziness and know there are still low-power radio stations which broadcast some really bizarre beliefs. The internet simply magnifies their apparent influence.
“I think we need to stop running through the agonized shirt tearing about the ridiculousness of the political blogosphere every time the antics of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Al Franken, or Keith Olbermann take centre stage and reconcile ourselves to a hard truth: this is our politics.”
I just love the way you paint in broad strokes. Reminds me of the “creepy” accusation lobed at Sullivan several weeks.
Look Scott, if you want to throw Senator Franken and Olberman into the idiot stew of Palain. Beck, Malken and lots of other wingnuts do me a favor and hyperlink some of their outrageous “antics” or statements to their names. Otherwise I’m left thinking your blowing smoke and making a very false equivalency argument.
I’m sure you can do it, why else in gods name would you say such things?
I have to throw my lot in with Bob.
Although I have heard plenty of screaming about the Liberal biases of Sen. Franken and Mr. Olbermann (and no doubt both men are unabashedly Liberal) I’ve never seen anyone pin anything specifically ridiculous or Beckian batshit-insane on either man. I’d certainly consider contrary evidence but I’m pretty confident it doesn’t exist.
Either that or liberals are just better at the game.
Scott seems to have bought into the bullshit factory, Republican, line that liberals are by definition crazy, dangerous, unpatriotic.
Beck can pour “gasoline” over someone or talk about serving Speaker Pelosi poison wine and Scott can conjure some equivalent liberal outrage. He has not specified the outrage but, sure, both sides are equally guilty. The equivalency argument is a meme popular around here.
That’s a fair comment.
I don’t think that I would put Al Franken or Keith Olberman in the same camp as Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck and so my including them in a list of people without fine tuning why I was placing them in the list was laziness on my part. I was more thinking in terms of the kind of sharp-elbow partisanship to which Jason referred in his piece and those were the two liberals I picked as a representative sampling of some folks who can drop the hammer pretty hard. But yeah, I think you’re comment that there is a false equivalency in terms of comparing them in kind to folks like Palin (less so) Beck (definitely) is pretty spot on.
And no, I don’t believe that liberals are, by definition “crazy, dangerous, unpatriotic”. I have had many positive things to say about liberals in the past and will have many positive things to say about them in the future.
Speaking of idiot leftists-libruls, how about Algore?
If someone hangs an effigy of President Obama is he expressing his political opinion or is he a racist?
That is definitely not an exclusive or. I can’t tell you what is going on in the head of the person hanging the effigy. What I can say is that images like that certainly give the impression of racism given our countries shameful history of lynching.
But the racism issue is a red-herring here, the real issue is the unacceptability and ass-hattery of hanging political opponents in effigy. That goes for the people who did it to palin as well. We turn to politics and a democratic republic to avoid violence in deciding what we shall do as a country. No-one should do things like this that indicate a willingness or desire to drag us back to violence as decision maker.
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