Friday, August 04, 2006

Remember the blogola scandal? If you don’t, don’t expect a recap here. It was too trivial and boring to live through once; to dredge it up again would require a level of discipline that I’m simply not capable of.

There is a forgotten footnote of that scandal, however, that warrants revisiting. When the blogola story broke that put some of the nutroots’ luminaries in a negative light, Markos Moulitsas sent out an email to his fellow nutroots denizens that, among other things, suggested that they don’t discuss the story in order to deprive it of oxygen.

These words don’t spring forth easily from my laptop, but this was clever. And shrewd. It’s tough to have a full blown controversy without two sides braying at each other. If one side makes the tactical decision to dummy up (so to speak), the controversy will die a lot sooner.

The tactic, and the discipline to implement it, also evidenced a surprising level of discipline among progressive bloggers. Their urge to call Moulitsas’ detractors every name in the book had to be overwhelming. Other than a risibly self-important Moulitsas blog post that urged his readers to cancel their subscriptions to The New Republic, the progressive blogosphere showed a remarkable level of maturity in this instance. I don’t intend to be condescending, but when you read the left-wing blogs, “maturity” isn’t usually the first word that leaps to mind.

During the Israel-Hezbollah war, the leaders of the progressive blogosphere have shown similar restraint. Many members of the nutroots’ rank and file don’t have warm feelings to Israel; I documented this in a Weekly Standard story last week. And yet the vast majority of the American populace sympathizes with Israel. In other words, the issue is one that can reveal the chasm that separates the progressive blogosphere from the civilized world.

Again, the leading progressive bloggers have basically said they won’t touch the story with a virtual ten foot pole. Few have written on it; when they have, they’ve limited themselves to platitudes saying in so many words that war is really bad.

Basically it is impossible in America to criticize Israel, or speak in defense of the Palestinian people, without being called an "anti-semite" which is why I believe that so many blogs on the left have been so quiet about the attack on Lebanon and what is benignly referred to as Israel's "overreaction". In fact, I hesitated to even write this post remembering how Juan Cole was smeared and denied an appointment at Yale. It is a very rare occurrence when I hesitate to write what is on my mind; but you know us liberals and how we hate to be called a "bigot" or to be accused of being "intolerant" by people who are bigots and are intolerant. Well, as my grandmother used to say: "fuck that noise". Also, I'm not staying up late waiting for a call from Yale.

I know that many on the right (and this would include those on the right who have kind of forgiven the jews, if only for the moment, for killing their savior) are cheering on Israel as our proxy in the fight against Islamowhateverism, because the right loonisphere constantly demands that someone must fluff their hate hard-on, particularly at a time when the commies, homos, negroes, and Mexicans (temporarily at least) lie dormant.