Retardo’s main retardation is his inability to grasp the simple fact that centrists, by definition, do not have a core ideology they adhere to. If they did, they’d be a third party, and centrists would be people who tended to lean towards the three different poles on various issues.

Retardo also refuses to absorb the fact that I am opposed to the occupation of Iraq, I was opposed to the invasion of Iraq, and I was in favor of the invasion of Afghanistan. It’s a failing of ideologues: if you don’t agree with them on all issues, you must be part of the devil-enemy.

I’m pro actually-free-trade, and I’m mostly anti-war. This simply doesn’t compute for a guy like Retardo, so he lumps me in with this fever-dream “fake centrist” devil he’s dreamed up and lumped in ad argumentum with Nixon.

Nixon is sort of the Hitler of lefty political debate, so I call Godwin.

Back to train more Suni and Shia Iraqis?

They have? When did this happen? Do you have figures to back up this “obvious” point? Oh my, you haven’t been reading that true blue populist and “real liberal” Thomas Frank again have you?

That you even compare the two is just ridiculous.

Differences:

Siegel didn’t want to get caught. Brendan unleashed a string of dimwit posts in what one can only see as an attempt to piss all over the pedestal he thought he was on. If it had been prime-quality piss, things could be different.

TNR may have been completely happy with Siegel’s regular column. Brendan got canned by his bosses for low-quality work.

Siegel had achieved his ambition: working at TNR. Brendan’s just trying.

Brendan has achieved the support of Jonah Goldberg.

That you even compare the two is just ridiculous. Proudly end up being the mirror image of hysterical rightwing nutjobs.

A better headline for him would have been, “The Dictatorship of the (Blog) Proletariat”

Ok, see, this is theoretically true, but we no longer live in theoretical world. When “Conservative” meant what it means, then they had some good stuff and some bad stuff. When the term was co-opted by bloodthirsty militarist neocon party hack aparachtiks and their theocrat fellow travelers, this ceased having any validity. They ain’t “Conservative” and they don’t have any positions that are right, because they have no interest in the populace, they have no interest in governance, they only care about the accumulation of money and power. I gotta tell ya, I miss the old conservatives. What’s scary is even Pat Buchcannan (outside of his ugly racist tendencies) sounds reasonable these days. Smaller government, less regulation and a reasonable tax structure are all pretty good goals, and they have abandoned them. Maybe the Dems could pick them up?

mikey

I mean Christ, if you want to stand up for ‘Bi-Partisanship’ — then fucking stand up for it. Show how the GOP has basically crippled it. You’d think that the way the GOP and Bush have governed the last six years, the fucking spineless Lieberman-types would notice this little fact. The Bi-Partisanship excuse is a sham for their cravenness.

I agree 100%. The republicans have demanded total surrender and called it “bi-partisanship”, and it is bullshit to validate their approach by taking it seriously. However, they are still sometimes right and it is just as bullshit when their opponents insist that all republican positions are, a priori, both factually and morally wrong.

. Centrists, even if they voted for the fucking war (which wouldn’t necessarily be a centrist position), should be screaming about the patronage, mismanagement and no-bid contracts that have defined the American occupation.

But thats the rub. Large sections of the opposition, such as Retardo here, see that position as ‘fake centrism’. Nothing short of moral condemnation of the very idea will satisfy them.

Absolutely not.

So, hands off Goldwater, my friend. He was an honorable conservative

I disagree, Renato. On economic matters, it’s my impression that Goldwater never stopped being basically a Randroid. Yes he was pissed at Richard Nixon and yes he said he’d like to kick Jerry Falwell in the ass. But he also IIRC did his best — which was pretty good, too — to sabotage the work of the Church Committee.

Atrios, Kos, and other liberal bloggers have attacked The New Republic for years, helping to undermine the center-left magazine’s lagging popularity among liberals. If TNR’s subscriber base were to shrink as a result of these attacks, the viability of the magazine could be threatened.

Blame the messenger. Yes, we all took orders from Dear Leader Kos and Deputy Dear Leader Atrios, and we cancelled our TNR ‘scrips because they commanded it. Certainly not because many of us already were sick of Lieberman-style bipartisan date rape and Kos/Atrios gave an online voice to what we were already thinking. Oh no. Can’t be that.

At a deeper level, these developments may offer a preview of the future of opinion journalism. Ex-reporters and political insiders currently dominate the nation’s op-ed pages, but mainstream news organizations like the Washington Post are hiring a new generation of ideological bloggers who are likely to take their place.

I think this is the key to the source of Brendan’s wounded pride. He was looking forward to a career track leading to being a conventional-wisdom-spouting DC pundit, prince of the cocktail weenie circuit, and he’s realized that instead those damn dirty bloggers are going to take their place.

Too bad Brendan. Looks like you might actually have to work for a living.

fake centrists only attacked Bush’s means, not his ends.

I hope you are not saying that you don’t object, to torture, extra-judicial detention, and domestic surveillance, etc. but mostly just think Bush is targetting the wrong people?

I’d say AuH2O started out as a reactionary and then by the end of his life he’d moved to middle (or even to the left) while his beloved GOP had moved far to the right on certain issues, particularly the social issues (abortion, gays, church and state).

Let’s remember that back in the 60s, fundie types eschewed involvement in politics. Addressing the Religious Right’s concerns was simply not an issue that Goldwater ever had to contend with until late in his career.

Goldwater was always pro-choice. In fact were he still around today, he’d probably have ripped Bush several new assholes, told the GOP to go screw themselves, and re-register as a Libertarian, which is really what he was in the end.

So, hands off Goldwater, my friend. He was an honorable conservative… especially after he quit talking about extremism being a virtue.

To the centrist, this is “sensible”. To everyone else, it is opportunism, hedging one’s bets to maintain political viability.

It’s not possible, of course, that anyone on the left would ever make a mistake, or that anyone on the right could ever be right about something.

In what context is this a defense of Nyhan? He did more than ‘make mistakes,’ as did Siegel. Both resorted to the kind of spin and fabrication they supposedly despise to smear others. Brendan Nyhan posted consisted distortions and invidious comparisons at TAP. He loses his gig for that perfectly legit reason, and then whines in Time on Ann Marie’s dime. Nice. Defend the suck-up if you wish, I just think it makes you look like a foolish sock puppet.

Re paranoia: scum like granpaw would rather live under a corporatist dictatorship rather than return to the tax structure of Eisenhower’s America. You need to wake up to that point.

Tell me what one right winger has ever been correct about. Give me an example. The history of the American left is awash in disasterous mistakes, but trusting rightwingers is the provenance of fools.

That after being hammered mercilessly by the rightwingers that own and run most of the media, we should listen to some self-important twit like Nyhan question us on a liberal blog?

The inability to question yourself is a much larger problem on the right. Example number one: GW Bush.