Battling for the Independent Vote in 2008

Peter Wallsten's got a nice piece up this morning at the Los Angeles Times on the shift among independent voters away from the Republican Party. In 2004, independents around the country - ensconsed in their "exurban" enclaves - joined more conservative partisans in sending George W. Bush back to Washington.

This time around, these same voters are likely to do a 180 degree political turn, perhaps boosting Democratic chances for securing the White House in 2008:

Unaffiliated voters, who split evenly between Bush and Democrat John F. Kerry in 2004, are now looking more favorably at the Democratic Party, a reaction to Bush's slide in the polls, the U.S. struggle in Iraq and other disappointments with GOP leadership.

It is a dramatic political development in such a closely divided electorate, and one that is likely to paint a different Electoral College map that for the last two elections was shaded Republican red in the heartland and the South, and Democratic blue in the coastal West, the Upper Midwest and the Northeast.

Strategists in both major parties believe the shift among independents was crucial to last year's Democratic sweep of congressional and state races in a number of traditionally Republican states, such as Colorado, Missouri, Montana and Ohio....

Strategists agree that the shift foreshadows a far more complicated calculus as next year's presidential election unfolds. Already, both major parties are examining ways to lure the increasingly important constituency, which though losing faith in Bush, is not enthusiastic about the Democratic Party. At stake are the White House and control of Congress, with competitive Senate races expected in Colorado as well as in Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia -- all with heavy concentrations of independent voters.

"These independents are not marching into the Democratic Party and declaring themselves Democrats, but the change is in the tilt," said Carroll Doherty, associate director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. "They are definitely leaning toward the Democrats."

Polls show that the movement among independents is a broad phenomenon.

It's hard to disagree with most of the analysis, although it might be worth it to take a good look at the Pew survey's sampling techniques and question items.

That said, one basic issue facing the electorate is the question of competence, especially as it relates to the war and national security policy. When it comes to pulling the lever in the voting booth in 2008, most Americans would likely be little influenced by overarching theories of democracy promotion or neoconservative ideology. Had the Rumsfeld Pentagon - and not to mention the military's general staff - been better prepared for post-conflict stablization in Iraq, and had we perhaps sent more troops for the invasion in 2003, our deployment might not have descended into unrelievable destruction and nihilist violence. This long deployment is testing even some arch conservatives. It's unlikely that those sitting on the fence would be unaffected.

Of course, the administration's early mistakes in Iraq have been internalized by those in the national security policymaking community; and now progress in Iraq is developing apace. Yet, the average voter is likely tired of the GOP scandals, and the roiling of the ecomomy and housing market must be putting quite a few voters on edge.

This opening has the Democrats salivating at their prospects. It's an opportunity that's driven the hardcore antiwar establishment into a frenzy, as well.

But there's still time for the GOP. The closeness of past presidential elections has shown that campaigns matters. There's no reason to expect 2008 to be any different. Plus, should Hillary Clinton win the nomination, her negative poll numbers remain high, a situation likely to be especially true of independents who lean toward Republican candidates.

Thus, it's wise for people to hold back a bit, and take all of this early polling and journalistic speculation with a couple of grains of salt. We've got a long way yet until November 2008. A lot could happen in the interim. Improvement in Iraq, or the Democrats' own Larry Craig scandal, might help persuade voters that the GOP might not be such a bad bet after all.

Neoconservativism as Scourge of the Left

This morning's post over at Andrew Sullivan's blog asked "What Maketh a Neo-con?" Here's the main passage:

Today, it seems that a "neo-con" (at least in the fevered imaginations of the net-left) is someone who frequently calls attention to the unprovoked aggression of despotic regimes (e.g. Iran and Syria), the violation of human rights in other countries, and advocates the moral superiority of democratic countries in international affairs. A "neo-con" is now anyone who dares make an issue out of the aggressions and inhumanity of despotisms without explaining them away, and for advocating America do something about these aggressions and inhumanities. It is for this reason that so many on the left attacked Bayard Rustin in the 1970's and 1980's when, in addition to speaking out about racial injustices in the United States and condemning Reaganomics, he also spoke out, vociferously, against the PLO, Robert Mugabe, and the Sandinistas. But Rustin was hardly a proper neo-conservative, even if he happened to write the occasional article for Commentary and helped found the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. And so, simply for stating uncomfortable realities about the world, someone is called a "neocon" (which in today's political discourse--not just left-wing discourse--is akin to labeling someone a "pinko" in the 1950's) and readily dismissed.

I don't know if that last comparison is apt. "Pinkos" in the 1950s were those considered in alliance with the forces of Soviet totalitarianism. Those on the right who opposed these fellow travellers rightly warned against any domestic support for the Evil Empire's ideological and strategic hegemonic project.

Today, neoconservatives support the expansion of democracy around the world, and the rollback of Islamofascism's threatening advance against the developing world's outposts of freedom.

But what really is a "neoconservative"? I think about this a lot, because while I'm Burkean in my basic ideological affinities for traditional culture and values, I firmly believe that America has a mission in the world to advance freedom and justice. Readers here occasionally point out the inconsistency of holding both Burkean and neoconservative positions simultaneously.

But I don't worry too much about it, particularly if one sees Burkean conservativism as a cover for the most paleoconservative isolationism imaginable. If that's what Burke's come to stand for today, I'd come down on the neoconservative side, if I had to take my pick.

Mark Gerston, in his edited volume, The Essential Neo-Conservative Reader, notes that neoconservativism starts with Burkean essentialism, but it depart from Burkeanism's more reactionary inclinations:

In 1952, the sociologist Karl Mannheim wrote, "Conservativism arises as a counter-movement in conscious opposition to the highly organized, coherent, and systematic 'progressive' movement." From Edmund Burke to the present, systematic conservative theory tends to find much of its motivating impulse in critique. True to Mannheim's characterization, neoconservatism, too, has formulated its political positions in response to ideas generated by the left. From the early 1950s to the present day, neoconservatives have castigated liberalism for ignorance of the complexity of social action and the embedded wisdom in human systems, a lack of resolve in confronting evil, a laissez-faire attitude toward human virture, and an unwillingness to defend the critical ideas of American civilization from its discontents. Practically every neconservative argument and position can be seen as a reaction to one of the central ideas of liberalism.

And this is why the radical left mounts its frenzied campaign of demonization against the "neoconazis" in the Bush administration. Today's ideological battles center on competing visions of goodness in the world. For Americans who rightly see the forces of Islamic fundamentalism as the greatest threat to civilization since the Soviet empire, the hard-left represents a fifth column determined to undermine America's mission and values from within.

Much of the debate tends to caricature the views of those on both sides. All of those who support the global war on terror are not crazed Wolfowitz wannabes dead set on preventive airstrikes against Iran's nuclear program. Conversely, all of those troubled by the costs of America's liberation of Iraq - and especially the significant loss of human life on all sides - are not Chomskyite revolutionaries hellbent on the destruction of the United States and its purported project of global imperial expansion.

Yet, there are those who on the left would destroy America and the values of goodness for which she stands. Neoconservative belief - with its stress on anti-authoritarianism, domestic institutions of public order, personal propriety and responsibility - stands against such nihilism and deathlike ideology.

I gladly embrace the neoconservative label. I've been "Radicalized by the Radicals." I believe that if neoconservativism forms the locus of resistance against the forces now intending to destroy the United States, it's an ideational holding ground for the good, to which more right thinking peope will gravitate to some degree, no matter how hard the antiwar hordes try to discredit it.

Irreconcilable Differences? Taking Sides on Iraq

As any political blogger worth his salt knows, when talking about the Iraq war, it's not easy to convince the other side of the rightness of your cause. Political opponents disagree vehemently. They talk past each other, unable to bridge seemingly irreconcilable differences. Political demonization becomes de rigueur.

In her Wall Street Journal essay today, Peggy Noonan addresses this issue as a national dilemma. She notes that, sure, there's progress in Iraq, but it's not like Iraq constitutes a unitary state; and she rightly warns that prospects for Iraqi political reconciliation are bleak.

Noonan provides a pragmatic interpretation of the situation:

All sides in the Iraq debate need to step up, in a new way, to the characterological plate.

From the pro-war forces, the surge supporters and those who supported the Iraq invasion from the beginning, what is needed is a new modesty of approach, a willingness to admit it hasn't quite gone according to plan. A moral humility. Not meekness--great powers aren't helped by meekness--but maturity, a shown respect for the convictions of others.

What we often see instead, lately, is the last refuge of the adolescent: defiance. An attitude of Oh yeah? We're Lincoln, you're McClellan. We care about the troops and you don't. We care about the good Iraqis who cast their lot with us. You'd just as soon they hang from the skids of the last helicopter off the embassy roof. They have been called thuggish. Is this wholly unfair?

The antiwar forces, the surge opponents, the "I was against it from the beginning" people are, some of them, indulging in grim, and mindless, triumphalism. They show a smirk of pleasure at bad news that has been brought by the other team. Some have a terrible quaking fear that something good might happen in Iraq, that the situation might be redeemed. Their great interest is that Bushism be laid low and the president humiliated. They make lists of those who supported Iraq and who must be read out of polite society. Might these attitudes be called thuggish also?

Do you ever get the feeling that at this point Washington is run by two rival gangs that have a great deal in common with each other, including an essential lack of interest in the well-being of the turf on which they fight?

But Noonan reaches past her pragmatism to take slaps at the administration. On the one hand she calls for "maturity" among all sides in the debate, while on the other excoriates President Bush for his failure to "calm the waters" among rival domestic audiences.

But wait!

Then she says Bush is right on Iraq after all, but it'd be best if he were "graceful" and "humble" in advocating his position! Not only that, perhaps the White House ought to ask for some help on the issue. Okay, but from whom? Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid?

Yeah, right!

I always enjoy Noonan's cool detachment and considerable wisdom. Sometimes, though, it takes a steely resolve to really meet one's objectives. I think Bush is right to stare down his domestic opponents - the president's one of the only officials in Washington who continues to understand the stakes of our mission.

We're doing better in Iraq now because we didn't cut and run amid all the defeatist blather this last few years. I'm not so sure that being more "graceful" toward implacable opponents will help the mission. And I certainly don't see so much grace among those fanatically opposed to any hint of successs on the ground.

Pragmatic politics may be recommended at times, but with the current partisan emotions roiling hot and heavy over the war, I doubt the present time is one of those occasions.

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week

Theo Spark published an excellent guest-post over at Jules Crittenden's yesterday. He discusses the global struggle against fanatical Islamist terrorism, and makes the special case that liberalism itself is a destabilizing fifth column infecting Western societies.

Some of the most hardcore elements of the left are in open alliance with the forces of Islamist totalitarianism. I've blogged about the relationship on occasion.

I'm not sure how well known this ideological-religious alliance is, but I'm pleased to see that David Horowitz's Freedom Center is planning a national series of campus demonstrations to raise awareness on the nature of Islamo-fascism. The events will take place during Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, scheduled for October 22-26.

Here are the goals of the events:

TO EXPLAIN WHO THE ENEMY IS -- not “terror,” but a fanatical religious movement associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and the sponsors of the Muslim Student Association; it is a movement including al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- whose common goal is the creation of a global Muslim empire ruled by an Islamic “pope” or caliphate, to be based in Iraq, once America is defeated.

TO COUNTER THE LEFT’S BIG LIE -- that “George Bush created the war on terror,” and to do this by means of campus demonstrations, guest speakers, and documentary films. The speakers will include former Senator Rick Santorum, Robert Spencer, Christopher Hitchens, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, Steve Emerson, Frank Gaffney, Cliff May, Phyllis Chessler and Ibn Warraq. The films will include Obsession; Suicide Killers; Border; Islam vs. Islam; and Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

TO PROTEST THE VIOLENT OPPRESSION OF WOMEN IN ISLAM -- the “honor killings,” arranged marriages, child brides, and second-class citizenship of Muslim women.

TO STRENGTHEN THOSE ON CAMPUS WHO REJECT THE ANTI-AMERICAN CURRICULUM OF THE TENURED LEFT which teaches that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic, imperialist “Great Satan” whose little Eichmanns deserve what they get at the hands of Medieval religious fanatics armed with the latest technologies of death.

TO TEACH AN ALTERNATIVE CURRICULUM THAT WILL ARM AMERICA AGAINST THE RADICAL JIHAD – This curriculum will teach that Islam, as currently practiced in Muslim states, oppresses women, gays, Christians, Jews and atheists. It will teach that “Islamo-fascists hate us not because we are oppressors but because we are Christians, Jews, atheists, gays, and liberated women, and because we are tolerant, generous and free."

Check out the whole article. FrontPageMag has called out the Muslim Students Association, a group which has refused to denounce Islamofascism, and one that has close ties to the hardline anti-American organization, International ANSWER.

Apparently the local UCLA chapter of the MSA solicited student donations for the Middle East terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah (during rallies at their "anti-Zionist week").

Further, FrontPageMag notes that a MSA speaker at Queensborough Community College in New York told the crowd "The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it!"

Trojan Horse Pragmatism: Markos Moulitsas as Vanguard of the Revolution

Peter Beinart has a very interesting analysis of Markos Moulitsas and the netroots up at the New Republic.

Beinart notes that in dismissing the most left-wing candidates in recent presidential elections, Moulitsas is illustrating the netroots movement's political pragmatism, its willingness to coopt the Democratic Party as a mainstream institutional vehicle to advance its progressive cause.

What explains this? Mostly it's the historical marginalization of the radical protest fringe in mainstream electoral politics. Beinart provides an excellent historical review of the failure of new left and militant forces to bring about radical change. With the possibility of utopian revolution more distant, hard left forces today see opportunity in capturing the Democratic Party for their own left-wing fundamentalism.

Beinart summarizes this shift, arguing that the Daily Kos netroots represent the most viable radical movement in decades:

It's the first broad-based liberal movement to emerge since communism's demise. In the Progressive era, it was conventional wisdom on the American left--asserted by everyone from Eugene Debs to John Dewey--that socialism was historically inevitable. Then, during the Depression--until Stalin's alliance with Hitler and the news of his terrible crimes brought most leftists to their senses--the Soviet Union became a real-life model of what revolution, as opposed to mere reform, could achieve. Even in the '60s, the shift towards outright resistance coincided with an enthusiasm for revolutions abroad. In Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Frantz Fanon, Mao Zedong, and Ho Chi Minh, the New Left saw blueprints for the revolution it desired at home. Tom Hayden and Staughton Lynd visited Hanoi, and Stokely Carmichael moved to West Africa, where he took the name Kwame Toure in honor of the leaders who had brought independence to Ghana and Guinea. "For generations," writes Todd Gitlin in his excellent book The Sixties, "the American left has externalized good: we needed to tie our fates to someone, somewhere in the world, who was seizing the chances for a humane society."

Now that's impossible. Sean Penn can embrace Hugo Chávez and Michael Moore may swoon over Cuban health care, but such radical camaraderie pales in comparison even to that of the Reagan years, when every major campus boasted a branch of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, which championed El Salvador's Marxist fmln. The Soviet Union is gone, and, virtually without exception, leftist revolutions in the third world have ended in tears. (Nelson Mandela, perhaps the only recent foreign leader to enjoy demigod status on the American left, underscores the point. Post-apartheid South Africa may be anti-American, but it is more capitalist than it was under white rule.) Even the social democracies of Western Europe don't shine as brightly as they did a few decades ago. With the cold war's end, there is simply no compelling ideological alternative beyond America's shores.

On the right, this has produced a utopian spasm: a belief that communism's demise proves capitalism's perfection, vindicating its purest, most deregulated form. But, on the left, it has made revolutionary rhetoric sound absurd. The netroots feel the American system has gone fundamentally wrong; that, in some profound ways, it has become less just, less decent, less free. And yet, the American system is all they have. It can be reformed, turned into a better version of itself. But it can't be overthrown because there is nothing with which to replace it. Markos Moulitsas is an idealist in a post-utopian age.

Beinart's analysis can be taken a step further, however. Perhaps we might see Kos in the light of Marxism-Leninism. Kos's netroots movement is analogous to Lenin's vanguard of the proletariat.

Moulitsas himself - not unlike Lenin - demonstrates a tremendous level of confidence in his political skills, and the rightness of his cause. This outlook allows him to dismiss centrists, such as Joe Leiberman, as outside the true constituency of the Democratic Party. In his recent writings and appearances, Moulitsas has evinced what I consider elements of megalomania. He's got an essentially irrational faith in the power of his movement, and his trumpeting of fake successes nicely illustrates delusions of grandeur.

Yet, in the event of Democratic Party successes next year, Moulitsas will claim the party's victories resulted from the efforts of the netroots and the appeal of its ideology. Kos will claim he and his acolytes alone possess the true progressive insights and credentials to achieve a long-lasting hard left agenda in the American political system. Rather than staying with the party's mainstream, electable functionaries, Kos will use his netroots hordes to purge party centrists, and they'll threaten to bludgeon the Democratic Party hierchy if it deviates from the netroots' Leninist line. A reign of democratic centralism will follow.

Kos' pragmatic political project is an ideological Trojan Horse. His pragmatism seeks to commandeer the official Democratic Party establishment to bring his movement to power and usher in a socialist revolution from below. As improbable as that might sound, Kos - in his drunken stupor of perceived power - certainly sees promise in the netroots's ideological role of as vanguard of the revolution.

A Guilty British Liberal Loses His Innocence

In his weekend article, Andrew Anthony, a writer at London's Sunday Observer, tells how after September 11 he was torn between his longstanding progressive beliefs and the nagging clarity of evil that unpinned the murder of thousands of innocents in America that day. He was facing an ideological reckoning.

His awakening came slowly, and was prompted by stream of leftist commentary he was reading following the attacks, which held the United States to be the source of the world's evils, and held up a standard of moral relativism justifying the terrorist barbarity:

What all these reactions had in common, I realised, was not complexity but simplicity. For all of them this was an issue of the powerless striking back at the powerful, the oppressed against the oppressor, the rebels against the imperialists. It was Han Solo and Luke Skywalker taking on the Death Star. There was no serious attempt to examine what kind of power the powerless wanted to assume, or over whom they wanted to exercise it, and no one thought to ask by what authority these suicidal killers had been designated the voice of the oppressed. It was enough that Palestinians had danced in the West Bank. The scale of the suffering, the innocence of the victims and the aims of the perpetrators barely seemed to register in many of the comments. Was this a sign of shock or complacency? Or was it something else, a kind of atrophying of moral faculties, brought on by prolonged use of fixed ideas, that prevented the sufferer from recognising a new paradigm when it arrived, no matter how spectacular its announcement?

In the end I reached the conclusion that 11 September had already brutally confirmed: there were other forces, far more malign than America, that lay in wait in the world. But having faced up to the basic issue of comparative international threats, could I stop the political reassessment there? If I had been wrong about the relative danger of America, could I be wrong about all the other things I previously held to be true? I tried hard to suppress this thought, to ring-fence the global situation, grant it exceptional status and keep it in a separate part of my mind. I had too much vested in my image of myself as a 'liberal'. I had bought into the idea, for instance, that all social ills stemmed from inequality and racism. I knew that crime was solely a function of poverty. That to be British was cause for shame, never pride. And to be white was to bear an unshakable burden of guilt. I held the view, or at least was unprepared to challenge it, that it was wrong to single out any culture for censure, except, of course, Western culture, which should be admonished at every opportunity. I was confident, too, that Israel was the source of most of the troubles in the Middle East. These were non-negotiables for any right-thinking decent person. I couldn't question these received wisdoms without questioning my own identity. And I had grown too comfortable with seeing myself as one of the good guys, the well-meaning people, to want to do anything that upset that image. I viewed myself as understanding, and to maintain that self-perception it was imperative that I didn't try to understand myself.

In a sense 11 September was the ultimate mugging, a murderous assertion of a new reality, or rather a reality that already existed but which we preferred not to see. Over the years I had absorbed a notion of liberalism that was passive, defeatist, guilt-ridden. Feelings of guilt governed my world view: post-colonial guilt, white guilt, middle-class guilt, British guilt. But if I was guilty, 9/11 shattered my innocence. More than anything it challenged us all to wake up and open our eyes to what was real. It took me far too long to meet that challenge. For while I realised almost straight away that 9/11 would change the world, it would be several years before I accepted that it had also changed me. I had been wrong. This was my story, after all.

Read the whole thing. Anthony's got a kind of interesting high-brow demeanor to his writing. Perhaps it's just a bit of British intellectualism (although I don't get the same feeling when reading Tony Blair's pieces).

In any case, Anthony's story is welcomed and good (check his new book, here). It's reminiscent of many stories of moderate Americans who became 9/11 conservatives amid their disgust at the rekindling of hard-left anti-Americanism that followed the terrorist attacks.

More on the Daily Kos Syndrome

In a recent post I commented on the narcissism and megalomania of Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos. I'm not the only one who's noticed Kos' inclination toward self-aggrandizement.

Kimberly Strassel, in Friday's Wall Street Journal, offered an excellent analysis of the relationship between Kos radicals and moderate congressional Democrats. It turns out that Henry Cuellar, a moderate, free-trade Democrat in Texas, was attacked by Kos for his partisan "treason" in 2006. But Cuellar whethered the storm, and his story points to a lot of emptiness in Kos' chest-thumping:

A centrist Democrat who is pro-business, free-trade and strong on law enforcement, the congressman was designated an apostate by the left-wing Netroots crowd. They decamped to his district and bankrolled a liberal primary challenger. Mr. Cuellar triumphed, though Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas would later swagger on his blog: "So we didn't kill off Cuellar. But we gave him a whooping where none was expected and made him sweat."

Which is the point. If the liberal blogging phenomenon deserves to be known for anything, it is the strategy to intimidate or silence anyone who disagrees with its own out-of-the-mainstream views. That muzzling has been on full display in recent weeks as Mr. Moulitsas and fellow online speech police have launched a campaign against the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. DLC Chairman Harold Ford, Jr. was even thwacked last week for daring to speak to this editorial page (my sincere apologies, Mr. Ford)--the clear goal to discourage him from making such a free-speech mistake again.

Yet a lively midweek chat with Mr. Cuellar suggests that this campaign of threats isn't necessarily having the intended effect. If anything, it might be backfiring. "They win when they intimidate people," says Mr. Cuellar. "I've taken everything they've thrown, plus their kitchen sink, and I still stand proud as a moderate-conservative Democrat." He says his triumph over blogger fire has only strengthened his conviction that his party will only win elections if it continues to be a "big tent" open to all views. "To make that tent smaller, to force people--not to persuade, but to force, because these are threats--to quiet down, that's destructive in the long term and the short term."

Apparently, the netroots hordes spent hundreds of thousands dollars to unseat Cuellar in the primary, without success:

Despite all the blogger bravado that they now run the show, Mr. Cuellar's experience has been more the norm than the exception. The press may adore them, but the Netroots simply haven't notched many concrete victories. "Every time I see [Sen.] Joe Lieberman in the hall, we like to say 'we're still here, aren't we?'" says Mr. Cuellar, a spunky tone in his voice. California's Jane Harman, reviled as a "warmonger," last year whipped antiwar activist Marcy Winograd in a primary, 62%-38%. Ellen Tauscher, who heads the New Democrat Coalition in Congress, was savaged by left-wing blogs for her votes authorizing Iraq and free trade, and in particular for her warning to her party not to "go off the left cliff." She walked away from her re-election with 66% of the vote.

Mr. Cuellar goes so far as to argue that instead of cowing Democratic moderates, the left-wing attacks have united them. More middle-of-the-roaders now believe that if the bloggers were to win a high-profile primary, it would only energize them to go after others. "This has brought us together to say, 'this is us, and we've got to stick together,'" he says.

This is not to say that Kos is having no effect on moderates. Incumbents don't want to have to wiggle out from under from under Kos' thumb. That's understandable, but I think if Democratic members of Congress continue to stand firm against the netroots they'll save their party from obscurity.

Kos is much more blustery than knowledgeable about politics (be sure to read my dissection of his poor Washington Post essay in my earlier post). Strassel captures this in her essay's conclusion:

In a match-up on "Meet the Press" this past weekend, the Daily Kos's Mr. Moulitsas extolled those who use his site to trash thoughtful folks such as Mr. Cuellar as a shining example of "democracy." In the same breath he then commanded the DLC's Mr. Ford to "control" his moderate members, and force them to stop disagreeing with liberal Democrats. If you get that logic, you might just be a Daily Kos reader.

I watched that debate, which aired last Sunday. I think Ford was head-and-shoulders above Kos, particularly in his classiness. Ford might have been more agressive in going after a number of Kos' off-the-wall claims. In any event, argument isn't Kos' strong suit. Intimidation is. Ford could barely get a word in edgewise through most of the debate.

I don't like Kos. I'm going to keep the pressure on him on this blog.

The Leftist Tide in American Politics?

Is America turning left? The Economist wants to know:

FOR George Bush, the presidency is becoming a tragic tale of unintended consequences. In foreign policy, the man who sought to transform Iraq, the Middle East and America's reputation has indeed had revolutionary effects, though not the ones he was aiming for. Now something similar seems to be happening in domestic politics. The most conservative president in recent history, a man who sought to turn his victories of 2000 and 2004 into a Republican hegemony, may well end up driving the Western world's most impressive political machine off a cliff.
That machine has put Republicans in the White House in seven of the past ten contests. At times it has seemed as if the Democrats (oddly, given their status as the less Godly party) have had to rely on divine intervention to get elected. Watergate helped Jimmy Carter in 1976, just as the end of the cold war and Ross Perot's disruptive third-party campaign helped Bill Clinton in 1992. Better organised and more intellectually inventive than their “liberal” rivals, American conservatives have controlled the agenda even when they have lost: Mr Clinton is best remembered for balancing the budget and passing welfare reform, both conservative achievements. In a country where one in three people see themselves as conservatives (against one in five as liberals) and where the South and West have grown far more quickly than the liberal north-east, it is easy to see why Mr Bush and his strategist, Karl Rove, dreamed of banishing Democrats from power for a generation.

Now they would settle for a lot less. Having recaptured Congress last year, the Democrats are on course to retake the presidency in 2008. Only one Republican, Rudy Giuliani, looks competitive in the polls, and his campaign is less slick than those of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Voters now favour generic Democratic candidates over Republican ones by wide margins. Democrats are more trusted even on traditional conservative issues, such as national security, and they have opened up a wide gap among the young, among independents and among Latinos (see article).

The easy scapegoat is Mr Bush himself. During his presidency, the words Katrina, Rumsfeld, Abramoff, Guantánamo and Libby have become shorthand for incompetence, cronyism or extremism. Indeed, the failings of Mr Bush's coterie are oddly reassuring for some conservatives: once he has gone, they can regroup, as they did after his father was ousted in 1992.

Yet this President Bush is not a good scapegoat. Rather than betraying the right, he has given it virtually everything it craved, from humongous tax cuts to conservative judges. Many of the worst errors were championed by conservative constituencies. Some of the arrogance in foreign policy stems from the armchair warriors of neoconservatism; the ill-fated attempt to “save” the life of the severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo was driven by the Christian right. Even Mr Bush's apparently oxymoronic trust in “big-government conservatism” is shared in practice by most Republicans in Congress.

From this perspective, the worrying parallel for the right is not 1992 but the liberal overreach of the 1960s. By embracing leftish causes that were too extreme for the American mainstream—from unfettered abortion to affirmative action—the Democrats cast themselves into the political wilderness. Now the American people seem to be reacting to conservative over-reach by turning left. More want universal health insurance; more distrust force as a way to bring about peace; more like greenery; ever more dislike intolerance on social issues.

Read the whole thing (and also click on The Economist's supplemental analysis of trends in partisan identification).

Next year does look to be a Democratic year in terms of party dynamics. But I don't think we're heading toward a long-term realignment toward Democratic liberalism (some analysts even argue that the GOP retains the edge toward lasting party preeminance). But the final paragraph of The Economist's piece is intriguing:

One finding that stands out in the polls is that most Americans distrust government strongly. Forty years ago they turned against a leftish elite trying to boss them around; now they have had to endure a right-wing version. In democracies political revolutions usually become obvious only in retrospect. In 1968, with America stuck in another bruising war, few liberals saw Richard Nixon's southern strategy as part of a long-term turn to the right. All that was clear then was that most Americans urgently wanted a change of direction. That is also true today.

I think the main changes people want are two: success in Iraq and economic security. Until those two issue areas improve, Democratic prospects will remain bright.

A Comment on Postmodern Logic

I'm endlessly fascinated by the funky argumentative logics of the radical left. As some of my readers have noticed, I've initiated a number of debates with lefty bloggers in recent weeks (see here and here).

Some have asked: Why do I do it? Sure, a lot of it is fascination and a hint of orneriness. But more seriously, my response is that engaging the enemy at home is the best way to learn about the nature and capabilities of the adversary. And I do think we have an enemy at home in the hardline left, which I see as a modern fifth column movement seeking the destruction of the country.

It's difficult to engage lefties in debate, however. Even the most evidentiary, logical, or principled argument will fail to persuade a postmodern ideologue. As Dr. Sanity points out in a recent post, postmodernists somehow manage to win all arguments:

Substitute almost any talking point of today's political left for "Manmade Global Warming Debate". and you their tried and true recipe for "winning" debates: ignore reality, truth, and reason.

It turns out that postmodern philosophy and rhetoric are simply perfect for this purpose (see here, here, here, here, here and here, for example) and can be mobilized rapidly whenever there is the slightest possibility that a glimpse of the real world might break through the barrier of perpetual psychological denial.

Those who live in the wonderful world of denial go through their daily lives secure in the knowledge that their self-image is protected against any information, feelings, or awareness that might make them have to change their world view. Nothing--and I mean NOTHING--not facts, not observable behavior; not the use of reason or logic; or their own senses will make an individual in denial re-evaluate that world view. All events will simply be reinterpreted to fit into the belief system of that world--no matter how ridiculous, how distorted, or how psychotic that reinterpretation appears to others. Consistency, common sense, reality, and objective truth are unimportant and are easily discarded--as long as the world view remains intact.

This is one of the wondrous aspects of postmodern rhetoric, where reality and truth are only relative, is that anybody's "reality" is as good as anybody else's. For the dedicated postmodernist, polls and opinion are the final arbiters of truth; and the results of a poll or two, constructed along ideological lines to fit a particular template, is all you need to confirm your reality.

Reality is a matter of opinion (simply ignore any polls that don't agree with your reality, of course). This type of useful rhetoric can even determine today, what history will say many tomorrows from now. With enough repetition and passion, "history" can be set in stone in the temporal present!

Extremely convenient for anyone who wants to avoid confronting their own contradictions in the present.

The rhetorical passion and word play is mere camouflage for the inherent philosophical and psychological contradictions that the postmodern left exploits in order to achieve and maximize political power. They are perfectly aware that their positions don't make any sense and can be refuted by anyone with basic knowledge of logic and logical fallacies; but their goal is to maintain the psychological denial necessary to believe in the left's ideology. Interpreting this defense and exposing it is essential to countering that ideology.

Read the whole thing. Dr. Sanity also adds this point a little later in the entry:

The entire purpose of the contradictory discourse technique is actually to shut down any argument or debate.

The opposite of my fascination with the left's flawed argumentative logics is the pure, almost raging frustration I get with these types. I think this flows from my profession as a teacher.

In the classroom, when engaging students in discussion, there is the air of the institutional mission to educate, to open minds, to challenge beliefs and opinions with countervailing data or arguments. Most students have a sense of respect and deference for knowledgeable discourse grounded in evidence or history.

I don't find that to be the case in exchanges with the radicals. In fact, in one of my debates with one of the craziest of my left opponents, my arguments caused so much frustration on the other side as to elicit a violent reaction, and some retaliation.

In any case, that's enough of this for today. I'll be posting more on liberal irrationalism as the whim dictates.

The Rove Legacy

Karl Rove never moved me all that much. He appeared to serve the role that any loyal presidential advisor should serve, which is to provide the best tactical and strategic advice to advance the political power of his boss, and that of the party. Rove's tenure in the White House is noncontroversial from my perspective.

What will be Rove's legacy? This morning's Los Angeles Times provides a nice analysis:

In nearly a decade as the guiding political strategist for George W. Bush and the Republican Party, Karl Rove was often hailed as a genius. He masterminded Bush's rise to national prominence, directed his two winning presidential campaigns and wrote a campaign playbook for GOP success in Congress and statehouses across the country.

Some Republican strategists, including Rove himself, even dreamed that the system Rove created would make the party invincible, able to dominate American politics for decades.

Now, as Rove prepares to leave the White House at the end of the month, the party that bears his imprint faces a difficult question: Can "Rovism" survive Rove? Will Rove's unique combination of innovative campaign techniques and polarizing hardball tactics translate into long-term success for his party? Or has it seen its best days?

One thing seems clear: History will rank Rove as one of the most powerful political advisors of modern times. With his influence stretching beyond campaign strategy to policy decisions and the inner workings of the most prosaic of federal agencies, Rove ranks with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Harry Hopkins and President McKinley's Mark Hanna.

But looking to the 2008 elections and beyond, even some Republicans say that though some of Rove's techniques have revolutionized politics and changed the way both parties organize their campaigns, other parts of Rovism contained the seeds of its eventual destruction.

Rove's relentlessly polarizing tactics and his over-the-top use of government power for political purposes, critics say, were bound to wear out their welcome with a fundamentally pragmatic and moderate electorate.

Read the whole thing. The article continues with an interpretation of Bush's fortunes I've long held: The political difficulties of the Bush years - and those of the Republican Party going forward - rest not so much in the adminstration's "Great Society conservative" ideology and its failures, but rather in the rubble of America's liberation of Iraq.

More than anything else, the Iraq war will be the key determinant of the upcoming fortunes of the GOP. Had Iraq's reconstruction been better planned - with less disorder, looting, destruction, and death - the United States might have consolidated its lighting military victory and turned Iraq's regime change into an internationally popular war of liberation. In contrast, nearly five years of military struggle - which has allowed critiques to frame the war as a "disaster" and a "quagmire" - have left the GOP with an unnecessay foreign policy albatross.

In terms of political strategy, those faulting Rove's overreaching or his ideological inconsistencies would be well to remember that he deeply understood the power of partisanship as electoral strategy. I wince sometimes when I hear all this talk about "bipartisaship" or efforts to move beyond "political paralysis." But politics at its core is about achieving power and implementing policies based on a deep-seated set of partisan beliefs about the role of government.

Rove knew what hot-button socially conservative issues would fire up the base - abortion, same-sex marriage, gun rights - and he pushed these to capture slim electoral Repubican majorities. This deft exploitation of wedge issues - and his brainy, back room "architect" role at the White House - is what drives liberals to demonize this adminstration with their radical hardline leftist attacks.

Karl Rove as presidential advisor is no more evil than other successful campaign strategists from earlier periods of Democratic presidential power. For the left, he came to symbolize the Machiavellian inclination of the Bush "regime," and for that he'll forever remain in the liberal pantheon of "evil" operatives of the American political tradition.

More Leftist E-Mail Analysis

Dr. Sanity gets a load of whacked-out e-mail! She posted her latest installment of the "hate-filled electronic missives chronicles" yesterday, breaking down this most recent lefty attack into psychological categories (projection, paranoia, fantasy, etc.).

Read the e-mail in the post, then the response. I particularly liked this section on "Delusion/Entitlement/Malignant Narcissism":

Let's not forget that this person undoubtedly thinks of itself as a real American patriot, speaking truth to power ("your little drunken POS brain dead appointed moron squatting in my White house"). Note the reference to "my" White house, as if the White House belongs only to his/her ilk--implying that if he/she and his/her friends are not living in it, it was somehow illegitimately taken from them because it belongs to them!

Finally, as a card-carrying member of the compassionate, loving, and non-violent political left--who always support peace, love, brotherhood and justice--you may come away with the non-PC impression that the author is actually not a very nice person at all!

What gives this aspect of badron023's personality away? Call me psychic, but his/her obvious dedication to the basic "principles" of today's left, comes through in phrases such as "get your sorry azz" and "little drunken POS brain dead appointed moron" and "fkn chit stain traitors".

The deliberate abuse of spelling and grammar is a dead giveaway that badron023 is a product of the primarily self-esteem-enhancing K-12 curriculum of today's public education, which encourages the notion that just because you have some opionion or feeling that something is true (even if you can't articulate it in any rational or coherent manner); that your opinion or feeling will always trump objective reality because the only reality that matters is how good you feel about yourself.

Like all the denialists of the left, these little adolescent drama kings and queens intend to twist, manipulate and distort reality and truth to fit their agenda.

And I, for one, do not intend to let them get away with it - at least on this blog.

In the great scheme of things, what I say about them doesn't matter much. Logic dictates that both of us cannot be correct in our diametrically opposed assessments of what is real and what is not; about what is true and what is false.

We may, in fact, both be wrong.

I am content to let the final arbiter be reality, itself.

Ah, reality. Now that's a good thing!

And to admit that we could be wrong? Unheard of in my exchanges with the radical left!

The Faded Centrism of the Democratic Party

Kimberly Strassel's got a great essay on the Democrats and the radical left in today's Wall Street Journal. Apparently, the hard left netroots base is critical of the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist advocacy group co-founded by Al From in the pre-Bill Clinton era. From argues that 2008 represents perhaps the best political environment for the Democrats in years. To which Srassel notes:

That is, if his party doesn't blow it...The far left has found something to unify it - hatred of George W. Bush. Technology has given it the means to organize; what the right found in talk radio, liberals have found in the "netroots" Internet, from MoveOn.org to Daily Kos. Its activism has of late overshadowed groups like the DLC, which still believe in such creaky notions as ideas....

Markos Moulitsas, chief flogger-blogger on the Daily Kos, this week slammed the DLC as a group that wants to "blur distinctions with the GOP," and reveling that Democrats had won in 2006 because liberals like himself had "forced" Americans to pick sides.

Strassel says that the left's ultimate goal is to get the Democratic presidential candidates toeing their line, and the Kos crowd has been having some success:

At least a few activists danced a victory lap...a few weeks back when every last Democratic candidate spurned the DLC's annual convention in Nashville, instead turning up at Mr. Moulitsas's YearlyKos event in Chicago.

But I particularly like Strassel's argument regarding the radical left's influence on the new Democratic congressional majority:

Nancy Pelosi shrewdly presented her party as more centrist in last year's election, yet upon winning tossed the gavel to her liberal wing. Egged on by activists, Congressional Democrats have spent eight months fighting for surrender in Iraq, tanking trade pacts with Latin America and South Korea, and maneuvering to institute backdoor socialized health care. This undoubtedly has something to do with Congress's approval rating, which now stands below that of even President Bush.

Read the whole thing. Strassel begins and ends the piece with comments from Harold Ford - now the new DLC chairman, and peeved with the netroots - who notes that it was DLC-backed candidates in the 2006 elections who helped build a Democratic majority.

The hard left's narcissism blinds it to its failed record of helping the Democratic Party (for example, with brilliant attacks on centrists like Joseph Lieberman). Interesting too is that as news of the surge's progress continues to come in, the hard left forces of the Democratic Party will look even more wacky than they already are!

Radicalized by the Radicals

In writing yesterday's post, "My Conservative Identity," I was reminded of one of the founding principles of this blog: a commitment to analyzing, exposing, and resisting the anti-Americanism and irrationalism of the radical left. For most Americans, the September 11 attacks were shocking and tragic, but they were also accompanied by a wretched round of America-bashing. Yet it really wasn't until 2003, in my own case -- amid the antiwar left's movement against the Iraq war -- that I really woke up to the hate-addled forces seeking the destruction of the United States.

In yesterday's entry I linked to Cinnamon Stillwell's seminal article on post-September 11 conservativism, "The Making of a 9/11 Republican." Stillwell crystalizes the changing ideational foundations of many progressive-minded citizens, and chronicles her own transformation into a post-9/11 conservative:

Having been indoctrinated in the postcolonialist, self-loathing school of multiculturalism, I thought America was the root of all evil in the world. Its democratic form of government and capitalist economic system was nothing more than a machine in which citizens were forced to be cogs. I put aside the nagging question of why so many people all over the world risk their lives to come to the United States. Freedom of speech, religious freedom, women's rights, gay rights (yes, even without same-sex marriage), social and economic mobility, relative racial harmony and democracy itself were all taken for granted in my narrow, insulated world view.

So, what happened to change all that? In a nutshell, 9/11. The terrorist attacks on this country were not only an act of war but also a crime against humanity. It seemed glaringly obvious to me at the time, and it still does today. But the reaction of my former comrades on the left bespoke a different perspective. The day after the attacks, I dragged myself into work, still in a state of shock, and the first thing I heard was one of my co-workers bellowing triumphantly, "Bush got his war!" There was little sympathy for the victims of this horrific attack, only an irrational hatred for their own country.

Read the whole thing. The article is essential reading for those thinking about their own ideological foundations. The Stillwell piece provides an opening for me, as well, to dwell a bit on my experience as pro-victory professor, and as a proud American committed to rationalism and traditional values.

I began blogging after I became frustrated on my campus with the antiwar radicalism, and especially the tremendous level of vitriol I found among those opposed to the Bush administration. Blogging became a way to comment on events, and to advance the conservative agenda.

I remember writing a post on President Bush's Memorial Day Speech at Arlington National Cemetary in 2006. The comment thread to that post generated some of the most hate-filled attacks I ever received. I've switched over to Haloscan comments since then, but I cannot forget the spewing hatred leveled at me even for even linking to the White House, not to mention my show of support for the American military. It was like being spat upon, only verbally. The commenter ridiculed my integrity, attacked my academic credentials, and called me a chicken hawk. I was taken aback by this episode, but it taught me something about the wild west element of the web. I also became more steeled in my views, and better equipped to respond to these attacks intellectually (see my "What is a Chicken Hawk?" post, which was a key, early response to this style of screed).

Is President Bush the worst president in history? Of course not, but don't tell that to the endless line of leftists denouncing any and all elements of GOP power. I never cease to be amazed by the left's sheer hatred for this administration, and especially its contempt for even a moderate level of reasoned intellectual debate and exchange.

I noticed this once again in a go 'round I had over at The Impolitic blog. Libby Spencer, the blog's main author, is a prototypical America-basher and hard-left Bush-hater. Ms. Libby wrote a post on Peggy Noonan's recent call for a reconsideration of English as the official language, dismissing Noonan as elitist and out of touch with American diversity. I took issue with the post in the comments, noting that Noonan had enough common sense to see through the multiculturalist evils challenging American traditionalism. To which Ms. Libby resonds:

I think you're afraid of just about everything and your answer to every fear seems to be commit wanton acts of violence against those who make you tremble.

I might suggest you simply hide under your bed until Bush wins the war on terror. I hear it's about to turn a corner any minute now.

I responded:

It's not fear but a respect for tradition and reason that animates me....The country was not built by foreign language speakers. The country was founded by Anglo-Protestants. Those that came later assimilated to English. The process still works, although multiculturalists reject the assimilationist project. They are afraid. They fear integration into the American mainstream, perceived to them as imperialist and totalitarian. In that sense they dramatically differ from earlier waves of immigrants to our shores.

Then Ms. Libby let loose with a nice little dose of radical left ideology:

As for English speakers building the country, I might remind you that even the pilgrims were univited immigrants. The country wasn't empty when they arrived and the indigenous residents they took the land from were Indians. I don't believe they were English speakers.

I responded once again, summarizing the poverty of Ms. Libby's approach and argument:

You label principled positions as "fear," for example, as if there were something wrong with that. Fear is a basic human impulse, a necessary instinct. I'd be scared if planes were plowing into the New York office towers where I worked. I'd be scared if I was getting off the Madrid underground as it was exploding into a fiery ruin of death and destruction. But hey, it's easier to brush off legimate argumentation as "fear mongering" than actually engage it persuasively....

You come from an irrational perspective, if I may say, for multiculturalism as an ideology is a rejection of the modernist, scientific, industrial, cultural, and linguistic heritage of the nation. A national heritage of reason and progress. A nation of settlers, by the way, not immigrants. Settlers who triumphed in establishing a new nation. You again digress with boilerplate left wing rants denouncing takings of the land. But be honest: The superior civilazation prevailed. Native peoples couldn't compete, and instead had to adapt to a more dynamic system of economic and political organization. It's politially incorrect to say it, but it's the truth (hard to bear, for a pure ideologue though it may be).

Ms. Libby was left utterly helpless with my riposte. She refused to engage me even further, dismissing me in another comment thread, saying she had "five blogs" and had to keep up with her "content."

I was impressed, to be sure! Yet while Libby quit the debate, her honor was rescued by a new interlocutor in the form of Captain Fogg. Old Fogg jumped in to defend the flumoxed Ms. Libby in a new post calling for President Bush's impeachment. Fogg's debating style is to thump his chest and then descend into an endless downward spiral of incohent gibberish and radical nonsense. I rebutted him point after point, and he became more enraged as his impotence in debate ratcheted upward.

He got particularly carried away in one nasty final debate in another one of Ms. Libby's posts. As old Foggy gets more steamed, he resorts to ad hominems. He attacked my academic credentials, addressing me as "perfessor." But having heard it before, I calmly replied to his cheaps attacks, point by point. The Foggy diatribes were driven by utter revulsion and hatred for anything for which the Bush administration stood. I'd nearly had enough debating this pedestrian, but I was taken aback when Fogg descended into a bit of anti-Semitism:

I suggest you drop by the B'nai Brith website and tell them their hate for Hitler isn't valid because they hate Hitler. I'm sure they aren't bright enough to spot that ripe bit of carrion sophistry and don't forget to impress them with your credentials.

When the Hitler references start flying, it's time to call a spade a spade, and I did:

I was going to ignore your latest put downs, which roll down me like flicks of saltwater on sunscreen. Any time I've deflected your wimpy, posturing ripostes, you've ignored substance to hide in the welcoming bliss of ignorance. Yet, I decided to click comment to have you think a bit - in the hope of hopes - about the comparison your making between Bush and Hitler. Classic lefty tactic, right? Bush is the evil fascist of the age, the new fuehrer! That is so passe, God man! Where are the millions dead, eh? The cattle cars? The camps and ovens? The clouds of ashes? The SS henchmen? The totalitarian one-party state? I imagine, in your hatred of America, it's easy to equate the liberation of Iraq from decades of tyranny on an identical level as the Nazi holocaust. That's beneath despicable and demeaning - it's the ultimate disgusting manifestation of your descent into devilish ideology. It lowers the bar of evil, your Bush/fascist analogy, and condescends to historical memory. It's just shameful and sickening. That's enough said. You don't bother me in the least! You're nothing, and your views are the ultimate in loathsome. God save you, son!

I haven't gone back to comment since. Libby and Captain Fogg are off in there own little irrationalist world of antiwar talking points and rabid revulsion of America. I had originally visited Libby's page via Memorandum. I've found some interesting bloggers there, and on occasion I've had some good exchanges after checking the links. I thought Ms. Libby over at The Impolitic might be worth a comment or two. No luck, as you can see, although these ugly exchanges are educational: They reveal the utter vacuum of intellectual integrity among classic representatives of the hard left agenda and discourse.

So this is where I come back to Cinnamon Stillwell and her article distilling the ideological transformation of 9/11 Republicans. Stillwell is penetrating in her description of the hostile left forces:

Like many a political convert, I took it on myself to openly oppose the politics of those with which I once shared world views. Beyond writing, I put myself on the front lines of this ideological battle by taking part in counterprotests at the antiwar rallies leading up to the war in Iraq. This turned out to be a further wake-up call, because it was there that I encountered more intolerance than ever before in my life. Holding pro-Iraq-liberation signs and American flags, I was spat on, called names, intimidated, threatened, attacked, cursed and, on a good day, simply argued with. It was clear that any deviation from the prevailing leftist groupthink of the Bay Area was considered a threat to be eliminated as quickly as possible.

It was at such protests that I also had my first real brushes with anti-Semitism. The anti-Israel sentiment on the left -- inexorably linked to anti-Americanism -- ran high at these events and boiled over into Jew hatred on more than one occasion. The pro-Palestinian sympathies of the left had led to a bizarre commingling of pacifism, Communism and Arab nationalism. So it was not uncommon to see kaffiyeh-clad college students chanting Hamas slogans, graying hippies wearing "Intifada" T-shirts, Che Guevera backpacks, and signs equating Zionism with Nazism, all against a backdrop of peace, patchouli and tie-dye.

Being unapologetically pro-Israel, I was called every name in the book, from "Zionist pig" to "Zionist scum," and was once told that those with European origins such as myself couldn't really be Jewish. In the end, the blatant anti-Semitism on the left, even among Jews, only strengthened my political transformation. I was, in effect, radicalized by the radicals.

Stillwell goes on to note that the war on terror is the central conflict of our time. But it's a conflict we must wage not just overseas, but also with the radical forces bent on destroying our nation from within. My experiences as a pro-victory professor and standard-bearer of traditionalism -- on my campus and on this page -- have resulted in the same type of name-calling, harrassment, and intimidation Stillwell chronicles. I too have been radicalized by the radicals. I see these personal episodes -- and especially the blog exchanges -- as case studies in the fight we wage against the evil masses arrayed -- at home and abroad -- against the United States.