Why Conservatives Reacted With Grace
One of the most interesting results of Barack Obama’s victory was the reaction of conservatives.
As I wrote yesterday, the far majority of conservative commentators took their time to congratulate Obama and his supporters, wish them well in the coming years, and then started focusing on how they should improve themselves and their movement so they can make a comeback in Congress two years from now, and possibly take back the White House in 2012.
But the tone of most conservatives was polite, calm, steady.
The main reason they seemed so calm is that most of them strongly believe in what William F. Buckley once said: elections are important for they are about the future direction of your country, but they’re not a case of life or death (paraphrasing).
Conservative reader Christine Stanley e-mailed me yesterday, making exactly that point:
When we lose, our hopes and dreams and life’s goals aren’t so tied up in the government. It’s a disappointment, and I think a loss for the country (despite my mixed feelings on that, as I posted this morning, that I do simultaneously feel pride over the racial hurdle that’s been crossed.) But it’s not the end of the world, you know?
And this is exactly why so many progressives responded angrily after Bush’s victory in 2000 and again in 2004. They expect their government to ’safe society,’ to ‘radically improve’ it, to make people happy, even. To help them take care of their own business if they can’t or won’t do it themselves.
For them, elections are, quite simply, more important.
For conservatives less so. A conservative shrugs,thinks ‘we have to learn from this defeat in order to win next time,’ and goes on with life as usual.
I still can’t react with grace. Maybe it’s because I’m not a conservative
Just so, Michael. There are plenty of other things I can talk about. Life will go on. Even if Barack Obama fulfills every prophecy about him fromt he right, little of the damage he can do is permanent. The Presidency just isn’t as powerful a position as some think it is.
Your e-mailer is also right on target. Because conservatives’ lives dont’ depend on what the government does, what the government gives us, or what the government allows us to do, the government is only really of consequence to us when it encroaches on us. The government is not our sun; we don’t wake and sleep on its rising and setting.
Michael, I’m sorry but you’re way off on this one.
In 2000 the Supreme Court stopped the counting in Florida and therefore delegitimized the election. There are still questions as to whether Bush actually won or not since all the votes still haven’t been counted.
But I, along with many of my Democratic friends, were more than willing to give Bush a chance. Then 9/11 happened. And we ALL rallied behind the President. And nearly all of his applauded his move to go into Afghanistan to get Bin Laden. And then…we started setting our sights on Iraq. And yes, a large majority of progressives didn’t understand the move. We thought it was a ill conceived as we still hadn’t secured Afghanistan nor captured the guy responsible for 9/11.
Cut to 2004 and it’s now clear that the Bush administration essentially lied their way into justifying the invasion, rushed into the war and now Iraq is a complete mess. And world opinion has actually turned against us after this amazing opportunity to unite after 9/11? Yeah, you could say progressives weren’t happy about that. But it’s not because we’re so in love with government programs.
So positioning progressives as somehow more obsessed with elections and politics is silly, especially when it has been conservatives who have been talking about permanent majorities and have been at the forefront of redistricting measures at the state level to consolidate their power.
And, by the way, if you look over at the right-wing blogosphere it’s filled with graceless reactions to Obama’s win. National Review, Michelle Malkin, etc. Don’t kid yourself Michael. Conservatives just have a different political philosophy than progressives, but they’re still very much political animals.
I’m not “kidding” anyone – the difference should be rather obvious to anyone. Even the people you talk about praised Obama for being the first black president, etc. That they are still campaigning for their principles and defending them doesn’t make them mean or vicious. Unlike what progressives did after Bush won; which was absolutely hysterical.
The ones “kidding” themselves are, I fear, those on the left side of the political sphere, who are pretending that the right and left are equally hideous places to be in. That is most certainly not true; the left side is far more hateful and aggressive. There are some disturbing conservatives, of course, but that’s a 70-30 ballgame – of 100% aggressive people, at least 70% are on the left where the absurd is considered normal.
I congratulate, support him (since he will be president) and wish Obama well. Let’s hope his administration can bring about change for the better of *ALL* Americans (Rich, middle class, poor. I personally prefer the government stay out of my business, reduce my taxes and the size of government…Hey, I can hope for change, right?
I’ll support him, but I’m sure you will know when I disagree with him..without the name calling..
Justin, have you seen this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122584386627599251.html
The author was a Kerry supporter, yet he’s got the integrity to admit that the treatment of GWB has been disgraceful and unfair.
To address your specific points, the 2000 SCOTUS decision was far LESS political than it would have been had the courts suspended the normal rules of counting votes, and you seem to ignore the fact that the recounts done independently by media outlets afterward showed that Gore would still not have garnered enough votes in FL. Yet this fact was widely underreported so that many Dems still claim that the election result was illegitimate.
And give me a break on the Iraq War. Maybe you should think about holding some of your own party members to task for authorizing it??
As for your declaration of Michael being way off on his assessment of the relative grace with which the election losses have been handled, you’ll have to do a bit better than mentioning a couple of blogs (which to my recollection weren’t that bad.) If your opinion is that the vast majority of conservatives are reacting as badly as liberal/progressives have reacted to the last two presidential elections, you’ll have to provide a bit more of a comparison to back up your claim.
Michael…
As usual, you purport your opinion as if it were fact. And this 70/30 thing? Again, pure opinion.
C. Stanley…
So Michael just mentions your email and has zero links and you’re telling me that I have to do better? Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
Also, we can debate the finer points of the Florida recount and the Iraq war another time. I was explaining why progressives were unhappy with Bush. You may think these unreasonable points, but there they are nonetheless.
To the house…
The truth is BOTH sides have acted equally appalling throughout the past few decades and the blogosphere is unfortunately an extension of that blind partisanship.
However, after the hyper-partisan eras of Gingrich and DeLay and after the decades of incendiary right-wing talk radio, you simply can’t credibly make the case that conservatives pundits are more gracious in the face of defeat. And by doing so you’re just lulling yourself into a false sense of conservative reasonableness. Momentary graciousness that acknowledges the historical nature of an Obama presidency does not wipe away a track record of partisan hackery.
Jason, I agree that Michael too would have to give more supporting evidence- but note that he wrote the post as opinion, while you are the one who is claiming your opposing opinion as fact. You could have commented that you see it differently, but instead you declared authoritatively that Michael is “way off base.”
I’m glad that you can agree that reasonable people may think that the progressive case against Bush doesn’t justify the treatment he has received. I think there is plenty of room for normal criticism but the left wing has completely jumped the shark and moderate lefties have mostly joined them. As an example to support my opinion here, I’ll give you Ed Morrissey. Who is his counterpart from the center left?
Oops, just a typo, sorry Jason.
And one more point for Justin: Michael wrote several posts yesterday with links to conservative bloggers’ reactions. Michael, it might be good to link to that from this article.
All political bloggers “purport [their] opinion as if it were fact”, Justin, including you and including me. The act of political commentary is by definition an act of arrogance. There is a pot/kettle aspect to your oft-repeated complaints. Perhaps it would be better if you just stuck to substance-based criticism?
As for the substance of this thread, I have noted with disappointment that while most conservatives have responded to their defeat with grace and self-criticism, most liberals seem to have responded by…well, continuing exactly the same demonization and hatred of conservatives as they were doing before. It seems that even winning is inadequate to satiate their appetite for hate. HuffPo, DK, TMV — many of the core of the lefty blogosphere have continued to feature basically the same rage-fueled commentary about conservatives after the election that they did before it and, well, during the entire last 8 years.
many of the core of the lefty blogosphere have continued to feature basically the same rage-fueled commentary about conservatives after the election that they did before it and, well, during the entire last 8 years.
Not surprising since it seems to be working for them. Instead of selling their ideology, it has proven much easier to destroy the credibility of the other side and drive up public anger until theres’s a mandate for ‘change’.
In 2000 the Supreme Court stopped the counting in Florida and therefore delegitimized the election. There are still questions as to whether Bush actually won or not since all the votes still haven’t been counted.
You want to criticize people for being a trifle but upset about an election that occurred two days ago but the first thing you bring up is this?
If you can’t let go of the picked-over carcass of an election that happened eight years ago, you are exactly the wrong person to be throwing stones at anyone for their reaction to this one. You definitely don’t have much ground to be judging someone on their good graces or lack thereof.
Christine: that kind of remarks make me sick. If someone says something, that person should do some research such as reading other posts at this blog. If they are too lazy to do that, they should be dismissed.
C Stanley…
First, Ed Morrissey is not center right. He’s a fiscal hawk, a military hawk and a social conservative. Having said that, I do think he is a reasonable guy and I linked to him often when he was at Captain’s Quarters. And I was sad to see him join that hack Michelle Malkin, but we all have to make a living.
However, if I were to compare him to somebody on the center left, I’d point you in the direction of folks like Kevin Drum, Brendan Nyhan, Steve Benen and Nate Silver. All reasonable and yet critical of Bush and his policies.
And yes, I agree that there are many on the left who have viciously attacked anything and everything Bush has done. And knee jerk reactions like that are obviously intellectually dishonest. But to suggest that moderate Dems have joined those ranks is, once again, just an opinion and I don’t think borne out by the facts.
One last point…Bush has a 22% approval rating. So people are done with the guy and for good reason. If moderate Dems’ tone has grown increasingly frustrated with him it’s not because of blind partisanship. It’s because he has been an incredibly ineffectual leader. So I think you can cut them some slack since an overwhelming and historic majority of the country disapproves of the job he’s doing.
Jason,
Respectfully, this is about the substance of the argument, of which there’s nothing except an email. So I take issue with statements that are devoid of substance like this, “the difference should be rather obvious to anyone,” especially when there are scores of examples that suggest otherwise. And would you agree that the idea of a hyper-partisan noise machine was created by conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Richard Mellon Scaife, and its ultimate aim was one thing: win elections. Again, this all goes back to Michael’s point that there’s not a balance of hackery.
If we include all different media formats together, I would agree that there is a “balance of hackery”. I say this as a regular listener of talk radio, so I’m not just going on stereotypes here.
If, however, we are just talking about the blogosphere, I would definitely NOT agree that there is a “balance of hackery”. Hackery and abusiveness is near 100% on the left side of the blogosphere, and even an overwhelming electoral victory has not reduced the level of hyper-partisan distortion, name-calling, and hatred from places like HuffPo, DK, and TMV. Meanwhile, whatever hackery exists on the right side of the blogosphere is less (though still existing) and the level of magnanimous behavior from conservatives bloggers is much higher now than it was before the election. The basic underlying point — that conservative bloggers have reacted to their loss in an election with far more class and civility than liberal bloggers have reacted to their victory — is just flatly true, from what I have seen. For an example, I would point towards two posts right here on Poligazette — the Obama opponent posted a congratulatory refrain that even those that regularly disagree with him found to be very classy. The Obama supporter, however, posted a scathing criticism of the political right that with the exception of only one sentence paid zero attention to the changed tone from most of the rightist blogosphere since the election. A similar pattern can be found from commenters on this site, with conservative commenters expressing some concerns but mostly a “he’s my president too, now” approach but with liberal commenters remaining fixated in the exact same time-worn BDS obsessions that have been their drumbeat for 8 years now. (Your continued fixation with the 2000 election is an example of this.)
That difference in tone of reactions since the election is very striking, as far as I can see. Conservatives in the blogosphere have mostly responded with compliments, congratulations, and hope. Liberals in the blogosphere have mostly responded with no change at all from their tone of hatred and rage against anyone who disagrees with them about anything whatsoever and their obsessive fixation on the sins (both real AND imagined — I do not accept as true your implicit claim that all criticism of Bush’s policies derives from things he actually did wrong, at least some of it is still based in distortions, misrepresentations, stereotypes, and wild-eyed conspiracy theories) of a politician who wasn’t on any ballot and who isn’t going to be a threat to anything more than brush on a ranch in Texas.
Here is an example of the continuation of hyper-partisan hatred on the left that I am talking about. I didn’t even have to look for this, I just happened to find it on Memeorandum. There are many other examples easily found — the left side of the blogosphere isn’t ramping down the hatred even a little bit. http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/06/mccains-cronies-your-morning-moment-of-schadenfreude/ Also, these aren’t minor or fringe sites I am talking about — its the very core of the left side of the blogosphere that continues to lead the charge for demonization and stereotyping and refuses to even consider embracing the kind of post-partisan politics that Obama says he favors and even Nancy Pelosi agrees.
What is wrong with holding them accountable for their decision to continue the hate even after they win, Justin? Or is accountability always just for the other guys? When, if ever, is it fair to insist that liberals tend to their OWN garden for a little while? You, for one, have made that exact demand from conservatives and I have supported you at times when I thought you had a point. This is simply a demand that we apply equal standards of criticism and accountability to the left side now that they are the ones in charge of the world.
It’s because he has been an incredibly ineffectual leader. So I think you can cut them some slack since an overwhelming and historic majority of the country disapproves of the job he’s doing.
Sorry, Justin, but I’m not interested in hearing excuses for what should be inexcusable behavior. Slander and hyperbolic criticisms that further divide the country (and lead to a worsening of international opinion of our country’s leadership)should never be excused.
I have no problem with people making legitimate criticisms of Bush or any other Republican (there’s certainly plenty of fallow ground for that.) I may agree with some of it and disagree with other parts of it, but there’s no doubt that most of the liberal half of the blogosphere has abandoned that in favor of baseless smears and attacks which seek to discredit conservatism itself instead of putting specific responsibility on certain individuals where it belongs.
And when I pointed to Ed Morrisey I wasn’t necessarily calling him center right; I asked for examples of responsible center left commentators because I’m willing to write off the far left but I expect moderate left bloggers to hold those people accountable and resist joining in the pitchfork/tar and feather crowd. I’m afraid instead of that, you are providing examples of what I see as the problem of centrists who want to rationalize and justify the inappropriate behavior instead of condemning it.
I understand the differences that Democrats have had with Bush- the problem is that they haven’t handled those differences responsibly. As far as I’m concerned, when you give up the high road like that you no longer have ANY claim to be able to criticize others for it.
The tone on the right (as opposed to center right) blogosphere seems pretty harsh right now as well.
Some posts from the ‘gracious’ Malkin from the past couple of days:
America transformed: Waving the hammer and sickle
By Michelle Malkin • November 5, 2008 03:54 PM
And the real winner is…Peggy the Moocher
By Michelle Malkin • November 5, 2008 12:17 PM
Obama’s online money-grubbing continues: Can John Galt still donate?
By Michelle Malkin • November 5, 2008 01:59 AM
The Obama-Obamedia merger becomes official
By Michelle Malkin • November 4, 2008 08:53 PM
and her ‘gracious’ acceptance of Obama’s win
The One ascends; McCain concedes
By Michelle Malkin • November 4, 2008 11:15 PM
That ‘gracious’ acceptance from her was pretty snarky. If you don’t even use the president elect’s real name instead a of an mocking epithet in the title of your concession post then it is difficult to categorize it as gracious.
Most of the center right and center left blogs have been civil and respectful after the election even if they became a bit heated before. Both the far right (redstate et al) and far left (kos et al) have continued exactly what you would expect if you have been observing them for the past few months/years. Both evinced the same hyperpartisanship after the election as before and will no doubt continue to do so. The medium creates an atmosphere conducive to this and so it thrives. Trying to characterize the balance as particularly skewed to one side being gracious and the other odious is at best inaccurate. We can quote mine all day and each bring up quotes from the other side that are objectionable and we can each bring to the table examples of graciousness. Why can’t all of us just admit that both parties, and indeed most groups of people, contain some truly kind, generous, and exceptional people along with some truly odious people. It is much easier to recognize the good in allies and the evil in opponents and that colors all of our perceptions. We all need to take a step back and take a rational assessment of the situation minus the partisan blinders.
“Or is accountability always just for the other guys?”
It should not be, for either side.
“This is simply a demand that we apply equal standards of criticism and accountability to the left side now that they are the ones in charge of the world.”
The left has not yet ascended as it were to charge of the world or the US for that matter. It will still be a few months before Obama and the new congress take office and several more before we see what they do with their newfound power. I hope for all our sakes they use it well. They will doubtless do things I disagree with and I will criticize them there. They will doubtless do more things you disagree with (there might even be some overlap) and you and others will be correct to criticize them then. While I will most likely disagree with some of that criticism I welcome all honest and thoughtful criticism. That is after all what makes for a healthy republic.
The admonishment is not overly necessary here but, we should all remember that it is entirely possible to disagree without being disagreeable.
Grewgills, I’m not going to defend Michelle Malkin. I actually find her tough to discredit completely, because she’s pretty intelligent, a pretty good writer, and covers sometimes covers stories that I feel need to be covered (other times, not so much, like her obsession with the Graeme Frost thing to take just one example.)
I don’t think her tone is helpful; I very much prefer someone like Ed Morrissey because he’s never conciliatory on principles but I don’t see how anyone could disrespect him because he doesn’t do the namecalling stuff and he keeps things in perspective.
So, I agree with you, I don’t think she’s an example of graciousness in this loss. And you’re right, the problem exists on both sides. But if she’s the best example you could find, I still say that Michael and Jason’s point is demonstrated in the degree of difference in the vitriole there and what we saw from leftist blogs in 2000 and 2004.
What I find disturbing, Grewgills, is that you and people like you show a pattern: Whenever the right is being criticized, you quietly go along without challenging them in any way. But whenever the left is being criticized, you hasten to point out that the right is just as bad or worse. And you never, never, never admit that the left could be worse on anything.
Given that skewed pattern of behavior, I am not willing to accept your situationally convenient but more broadly inconsistent pose of moderation and even-handedness here. The way I see it, the level of hatred, distortion, dishonesty, and abusiveness is NOT similar in the blogosphere from both left and right at this time. The left has been more vicious for a longer period of time and against a wider range of targets than the right has been. Pointing at a few posts from RedState and Michelle Malkin (while conscientiously ignoring the many conciliatory posts from many conservative bloggers since last Tuesday) doesn’t even come close to matching the level and volume of vitriol that continues to spews forth from DK, HuffPo, Newshoggers, TMV, FireDogLake, Glenn Greenwald, and literally DOZENS of other sites even after an electoral victory. It is also worth noting that the hate from the right towards Obama was at least limited to one candidate in the heat of an election while the hate from the left towards conservatives is sweeping, without exceptions, and persistent even after they win. Ideological intolerance from the right appears to be mostly situational while ideological intolerance from the left is consistent and persistent perhaps even to the degree of being a core principle of the ideological left.
Your attempt to claim equivalence is thus rejected as both intellectually inconsistent and not supported by the evidence that exists right here in front of us on this site, without even having to “mine quotes” at all. And as I said, I didn’t have to mine anything — I simply keep stumbling across continuing leftist vitriol because it is so PERVASIVE that it is impossible to avoid while rightist vitriol is so relatively less prevalent that it requires searches and cherry-picking to highlight it while concealing the counterexamples.
This argument is tiresome. It would seem that the losing candidate has been gracious in his loss and encouraged his supporters to support the President-elect. It would also seem that the sitting President, in spite of he being the continious object of ridicule throughout the campaign, has also been magnanamous. And finally, it should be noted that (similar to 2000 and 2004) nearly half of the country voted for the “other guy”. That, to me, would be reason enough to be concilliatory, winner or loser.
I believe a helluva lot of voters are tired of being pushed into one “angry side or the other”.
I am a white male latte-sipping, evangelical, bleeding heart moderate-conservative living in a flyover, red (but at time purplish)state who has voted for the now defeated Republican presidential candidate and the sitting (and ?soon to be cabinet member) Democratic governor and I am tired of being “cubby holed”!
CS,
“I don’t think her tone is helpful; I very much prefer someone like Ed Morrissey”
He’s definitely a better read.
“But if she’s the best example you could find..”
I could find better (worse), but she was explicitly listed as an example of graciousness on the right. There was graciousness on the right, here and OTB for example, but she was a poor example to put forward.
A lot of the vitriol in 2000 and 2004 was because of exceptionally tight and controversial races. That is simply not the case here so IMO direct comparisons are not particularly apt.
“Whenever the right is being criticized, you quietly go along without challenging them in any way.”
That is simply untrue.
“But whenever the left is being criticized, you hasten to point out that the right is just as bad or worse.”
Not exactly. What I am reacting to is the creation of a false dichotomy where the left is characterized as exceedingly more partisan, more vitriolic, and less honest. In these cases showing the equivalence or near equivalence is entirely appropriate.
“And you never, never, never admit that the left could be worse on anything.”
That is, again, simply untrue. Reread my posts in this and other threads.
“It is also worth noting that the hate from the right towards Obama was at least limited to one candidate”
That assertion does not match the facts. I periodically visit redstate, pajamas, powerline, etc., and there has been plenty of vitriol directed at congressional democrats particularly Pelosi and Reid. This is not to excuse the vitriol from kos et al, but to point out that the attempt to paint this as a one sided affair is not at all accurate.
“Ideological intolerance from the right appears to be mostly situational while ideological intolerance from the left is consistent and persistent perhaps even to the degree of being a core principle of the ideological left.”
When you begin from that position it is exceedingly difficult to go anywhere constructive.
Take a moment, breath, and consider that in this one instance it may be you that is wearing the partisan blinders.
I primarily frequent the center left and center right blogs specifically to avoid the vitriol and the hyperbole. Because of that pattern I have not had to deal with much of it from either side, but it doesn’t take much looking to find it whether you turn right or left. Justin has already pointed out several left leaning blogs with high traffic that have not been engaging in the vitriol that you claim is so pervasive. Certainly more can be found on the left blogosphere than right, but that is more an issue of relative size rather than proportion of vitriol to reasoned discourse on either side. If I claimed that right wing talk radio was more vitriolic and less honest than right wing talk radio, I could certainly pull out more examples to support my position than someone arguing the converse for exactly the same reason.
c3,
“This argument is tiresome. It would seem that the losing candidate has been gracious in his loss and encouraged his supporters to support the President-elect.”
That is certainly true and he is to be congratulated on a classy end to his campaign. Bush was also gracious in his acceptance of the outcome.
“I believe a helluva lot of voters are tired of being pushed into one “angry side or the other”.”
I agree and wish that translated into that being less effective. Until that happens I fear we will see more rather than less of this.
Even though they won the election and “Joe the Plumber” cannot possibly be a threat to them any more, they are still attacking him personally by digging up his economic status from when he was a child. http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/joe-plumber-welfare-queen-too (the viciousness gets even worse in comments) (number of criticisms of this excess from left-leaning bloggers: ZERO).
Care to make more excuses to explain that away and claim equivalence as a blanket excuse for everything, Grewgills?
Evidence? Because I can’t think of even one time where you have either singled out a lefty critic as being unfair or where you have conceded that the right is not at least equally bad as the left on any given issue. Meanwhile, I can think of many issues where you have claimed the right to be worse than the left. Your positions seem to range exclusively between “they are equal” to “the right is worse” — the left doesn’t get a complete pass from you, but they get a relative pass. And you run pass blocking for the left any time they are singled out exclusively, but you remain silent when the right is singled out exclusively.
BTW — no one claimed it was a “one-sided affair”. The claim is that the left is worse overall. Please stop misrepresenting what other people say as a way of avoiding their actual points.
Jason,
Frankly, it has been forever since I read the left wing blogs on any consistent basis, mostly because I find them completely uninteresting or surprising. I do read the blogs I mentioned in my post which are all from progressive/liberal writers. So to say that 100% of them are hacks is disproven by my list, is it not? Or are you really calling Kevin Drum, Steven Benen, Brendan Nyhan and Nate Silver hacks? And moreover, is Josh Marshall a hack? I think he can go overboard sometimes, but I definitely don’t see him as rabid as you describe the left. And that’s a MAJOR blog.
As far as taking conservatives to task, I definitely do that, but I’ll also point you to the following posts as examples of when I actually did follow the liberal blogosphere and called Daily Kos out for being the hacks that they are…
Does Daily Kos control the Dems?
Rove/Kos now on Newsweek’s payroll
Would you trust this man with your party?
Daily Kos on the air
I also called out the Obama campaign for lying in some ads this election cycle, and I was a frequent critic of Hillary’s dishonest tactics during the campaign cycle. So I set my sights on a whole host of people from both sides.
Also, for every time you go on Memeorandum and find something like that from Fire Dog Lake (a blog I HATE, by the way), I could easily got to Red State, Rhiel World View, Little Green Footballs, Michelle Malkin, Flopping Aces, Jawa Report, Powerline, NewsBusters and Gateway Pundit to find somebody saying something just as offensively partisan, if not more so.
In the end, and back to the original point, I still think Michael purporting that the difference should be obvious to anyone (while not offering any substantive evidence) is lazy. He should be expected to fully explain himself and offer substantive proof if he’s going to paint with such a broad brush.
(BTW, the blogs that I do read? Below the Beltway, Ben Smith’s Politico Blog, Brendan Nyhan, CNN Political Ticker, Election Projection, Electoral-Vote.com, Fact Check Wire, Faith Forward, George’s Bottom Line, Hotline On Call, Jonathan Martin’s Politico Blog, Kevin Drum, Marc Ambinder, Megan McArdle, Michael Calderone’s Politico Blog, Michael J. Totten, MSNBC’s Video Feed, Outside the Beltway, PoliGazette, Political Radar, Political Realm, Politico’s Top Stories, Politifact.com, Pollster.com, QandO, Real Clear Politics, Reason, Ross Douthat, Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire, The Crypt’s Blogs, The Daily Dish, The Moderate Voice, The Next Right, The Oil Drum, The Page by Mark Halperin, The Volokh Conspiracy, Time.com’s Swampland and WSJ’s Washington Wire. I also checked Talking Points Memo Election Central and Five Thirty Eight frequently throughout the primaries and general election.)
Justin, while it is nice that you have been willing to equally criticize the left and the right in the past, it is revealing that the most recent of the posts you highlight as evidence for your claim is a year old and the other three are two years old. Also, criticism of the excesses of the left from two years ago doesn’t really change the fact that you are giving the left a pass on their CURRENT behavior. Note the link I just gave from Crooks and Liars (another in a long list of relentlessly partisan, abusive blogs that do nothing but demonize and never ever engage substance).
Are there reasonable bloggers that criticize Bush? Yes, but they are mostly policy analysis blogs more than political blogs. Conflating the two may help you find some liberals that aren’t foaming at the mouth, but if we ONLY focus on the political blogs, we find the pattern I am talking about. It is notable that it is easy to find conservative-leaning political blogs that are being conciliatory (The Corner, PoliGazette and Ed Morrisey) but cirtually ALL of the lefty political blogs I have encountered recently (FireDogLake, TMV, Crooks and Liars, DailyKOS, HuffPo) are being as vile if not moreso even after winning.
And you aren’t willing to call them on it so far. Instead, you’re running interference for them by telling anyone who DOES call them on it to shut up about it.
And why? Is it really intolerable to note that on this ONE issue (civility) at this ONE point in time (immediately after the election) conservatives as a group are acting just a LITTLE better overall than liberals? Or must we perpetually be with the meme that conservatives can often be worse than liberals or equal, but never better?
I’d say MvDG’s argument is quite valid – and Gardner in reply #2 proves the various stances – all despite his ignoring legalities of the 2000, 2004 and Afghanistan & Iraq war’s.
Have you looked at Congress’s approval ratings? They would have to massively improve to get up to Bush’s approval rating. Unless you would somehow say this is not an overwhelming and historic majority of the country disapproving with the job they have done.\
The absolute funniest part of it all is the left believing that their ideals is what attracted voters to them.
Jason,
First off, I’m not “conflating” anything. You’re trying to make a distinction between a politics blog and a policy blog. However, all of those left-leaning blogs I mentioned cover horserace news (politics), as well as policy discussions. So the distinction simply isn’t apt.
Concerning my own reading and posting behavior, no, I don’t think it’s particularly telling. I’ve already told you I don’t read the FAR left leaning blogs. Why? Because I know they’re extremely hacky. No need to re-experience them every single day when they add nothing but noise.
And as far as running interference for them, well, I think it’s a stretch to read what I’ve written here and characterize it as me telling anybody to “shut up.” I do, however, take issue with the idea that ALL left leaning blogs are painted with such a broad brush. If you think that’s me excusing the far left blogs from their sins, I’d again ask you to reconsider that given what I’ve said pretty explicitly about far left blogs in this thread.
However, as stated, Brendan Nyhan, Nate Silver, Steve Benen, Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall are all Dems and none of them are hacks. Perhaps all the liberal blogs you read are 100% ridiculous, but the ones I check on a daily basis are reasonable and thoughtful the vast majority of the time.
Also, if you get to include The Corner (which recently linked to a “story” that tried to prove William Ayers wrote Obama’s first book), I’ll include The New Republic and the American Prospect…two more than aren’t rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth blogs.
And no, it’s not “intolerable” to note that some conservatives are being gracious after the election. But what was said was that the majority of conservatives acted in one way because they can shrug their shoulders and go on with their lives because of their conservative ideology and that liberals are unable to act that way because they want government to save their lives and make them happy. And my original point (before we got into the blog discussion) was that recent history with Gingrich and Delay and others proves that’s simply not true. Republicans care VERY deeply about winning elections, just like Dems care VERY deeply about winning elections.
Justin,
Can we agree that those lefty blogs that are keeping on with the pre-election attack mode, including bashing “Joe the Plumber” because he was poor as a child are beyond the pale?
Or are their sins excused by Tom Delay and Newt Gingrich’s alleged sins from the mid-1990s and Bush’s alleged sins from the last 8 years as well?
It seems to me that the difference between a fair critic and a partisan hack is this:
A fair critic will use consistent standards and call out either side when they go out-of-bounds.
A partisan hack will condemn the other side for pretty much anything(even evidence is not required, guilt is assumed and all interpretations are worst-case) but when confronted by the exact same behavior from their own side will attempt to change the subject by saying that the other side is just as bad or worse.
From what I see, the vast majority of bloggers on the partisan left these days are hacks. Even the ones that don’t directly participate in demonization decline to call out their own side when they deserve it. Silence is consent, at least once the problem is pointed out to them by others.
For the heck of it, I have been watching FOX news and MSNBC (I dislike both mind you). But the past 2 days I see shows on Fox like Hannity and O’Reilly being more or less congratulatory, even handed and gracious (and more impaortantly talking about the future) Whereas shows like Maddow and Olberman on MSNBC seem stuck in the negative “snarky” anti-right pattern that Christine and Jason are pointing out. See for yourself, it is a fairly interesting turn of events. It also falls in line with the Graciousness MVDG brought up in this article. Perhaps we are seeing the this is part of the new stratgy of Republican party? Now that the Dems are more or less in control they will be using the loyal dissent strategy? (In a sense..To use the law, common sense, reason and logic to show disagreement, rather than anger and bully politics?)
Or even more to the point, Jay_C, will the media even ‘dissent’ at all? Chris Matthews now says that his job as a journalist it to help this administration (the incoming one, of course) succeed. Seriously.
Good point Christine..I forgot about that (just heard that on my way home from work) Almost drove off the road! Well, at least he came out and said he was in the tank, as we suspected. I think the Media will be the enemy of trying the keep the peace between the Republicans and Democrats. Thir partisan bickering gotcha news reporting and lack of reporting that which is negative toward the democratic party MSNBC, CNN, et al.. and Republican party – FOX) of the past has to stop, and is only getting in the way of healing. It looks like (for now anyway), Fox has realized that.
@C Stanley
My jaw almost fell on the floor when he said that. Thankfully the other panelists were critical of that view.
@Justin, re “In 2000 the Supreme Court stopped the counting in Florida and therefore delegitimized the election”, the counting process itself was illegitimate because of its targeted nature, flawed because of the non-binary nature of the voting material – recall the “hanging chads”? – as well as the ballots’ deteriorating condition, and unreliable because of human “interpretation”. The election was close and whoever lost was going to leave with a bad taste in their mouths.
But Michael’s essential point is correct: liberals’ fixture on saving the world through the purifying change only they can offer invests them more in victory and leaves them disproportionately outraged when they lose. Conservatives, after all, are more content with the natural order of things. That’s what makes them conservative.
I disagree. I don’t think you can take a couple situations and claim an author is “beyond the pale” and therefore characterize his or her blog as “hackery.” It has to be a consistent demonstration of willful ignorance, of which there are many examples of on both sides.
That’s one of the biggest problems I’ve had with your entire characterization of left leaning blogs vs. right leaning blog. It’s all situational and you can pick out moments in time on ANY blog to try and demonstrate that somebody is a hack.
As far as your definition of fair critic vs. partisan hack, again, it’s again situational given your POV on any given event or policy. I would also add that those who don’t concern themselves with the business of pushing partisan attacks don’t bear responsibility for condemning bloggers just because they happen to share a common political philosophy with them. And as far as having things pointed out to them, well, there are only so many hours in the day and I think you’re putting an unrealistic burden on bloggers at that point.
So I’ll continue to stand by my point that there are a large amount of hack blogs on both sides, but also a variety of good blogs too. And “good” is defined for me as consistent honest discourse, not consistent attacks on their own kind.
@marc – There’s no doubt that the Dems move to count only some counties was boneheaded, but at the time the SCOTUS rendered their decision, ALL counties were beginning recounts. It’s in this context that I talk about illegitimacy. But agreed that neither side was going to be happy nor gracious in the face of defeat that year.
But no, I won’t concede that Michael’s point is correct because I think the idea of what the “natural order of things” depends heavily on your POV. In other words, no political philosophy owns an innate sense of what is and isn’t “natural” and I sincerely hope we can all agree on that. I also disagree strongly that liberals are more about saving the world through purifying change than conservatives, and I think the last eight years and conservatives’ strong belief in the doctrine of American Exceptionalism demonstrates exactly why that’s not anywhere close to being a truism.
At the point that you even acknowledge that there is a difference in how they should treat “their own kind”, you are accidentally conceding my point, Justin: They are willing to compromise their supposed principles to protect their ideological associations.
You can dress it up all you want in vague hand-waving about “honest discourse” (and what that means in the absence of a requirement for consistent standards for criticism that include “their own kind” is far from clear), but I still think you’re just covering up for certain people. You have often shown a eagerness to condemn conservatives when they run interference for “their own kind”, but when someone criticizes lefties for it, you suddenly show a reluctance to make a condemnation. That contrast is very revealing.
“Even though they won the election and “Joe the Plumber” cannot possibly be a threat to them any more, they are still attacking him personally by digging up his economic status from when he was a child.”
That is stupid and pointless.
“number of criticisms of this excess from left-leaning bloggers: ZERO”
Will you be satisfied with anything short of all moderate (in tone) left leaning bloggers spending equal time criticizing the excesses of people with similar ideologies?
Do you hold right leaning blogs to the same standard?
How much time have you and MVG spent criticizing the frothing right wing blogs?
All I have seen of late from the two of you on this front is criticism of left leaning blogs and claims of moral superiority from right leaning blogs. By the standards you have put forward what does that indicate?
“Because I can’t think of even one time where you have either singled out a lefty critic as being unfair”
Here in the past couple of weeks I have criticized attacks on the plumber, criticized No on 8 proponents attacks on Mormons (I believe MM even pointed out one of these to you), and criticized attacks on Palin’s wardrobe expenses as irrelevant. That is only here and only in the last couple of weeks.
“or where you have conceded that the right is not at least equally bad as the left on any given issue”
The only right v. left comparison I have seen brought up here recently is the issue of tone and partisanship and it has been brought up frequently. On this issue I strongly disagree with both you and MVG for reasons that I and Justin have pointed out.
“Meanwhile, I can think of many issues where you have claimed the right to be worse than the left.”
Really? Can you? or can you just point out issues where I have policy disagreements with the right? The latter you can certainly find and likely in abundance.
I have also consistently opposed the meme popular with some here that the left is more viciously partisan than the right. Multiple comments on multiple threads re this topic are I think what is coloring your perception. That and my similar defense of atheists.
“no one claimed it was a “one-sided affair”. The claim is that the left is worse overall.”
The claim has been that the left is far worse overall making it a relatively one sided affair.
“At the point that you even acknowledge that there is a difference in how they should treat “their own kind”, you are accidentally conceding my point”
Not that Justin cannot defend himself but, where exactly did he say that? I can’t find “there own kind” anywhere. Maybe my contol F is broken.
He did argue that just because moderate blogs on the left aren’t spending time on the excesses of kos et al doesn’t make them hacks. BTW the blogs he mentions spend scant time talking about the excesses of redstate et al, so requiring them to bulldog blogs on their side of the political divide to prove their intellectual honesty when they are not spending time doing that to blogs on the other side is far from a fair requirement.
Your argument seems to boil down to:
We refuse to accede your point that left leaning bloggers (or the left in general) are more viciously partisan somehow proves our partisanship. The essense of that argument is circular.
I’m not accidentally conceding anything. We’re not talking about objective truths and that’s my overarching point here. You have a POV about calling out hackery that I simply don’t share
To that point, if I’m reading you correctly it seems as if you believe that all bloggers must be hyper-vigilant about what their own side is saying. I disagree. I don’t feel the need to condemn the MoveOns or the Randi Rhodes or the Daily Kos’ when they say something moronic because I’m not part of the far left and I don’t care what they say. And to that point, I don’t really care what the far right has to say either. This is why you don’t see me constantly calling our Michelle Malkin, Gateway Pundit, Flopping Aces, etc., even though it would ridiculously easy to do so. 99% of the time the debate on Donklephant is with a candidate’s POV or a news organization’s characterization of a certain bit of news.
One thing I do often on Donklephant is delete comments from both sides on that say incredibly inflammatory things, or I call out folks who talk in a condescending fashion or name call. My record is consistent in that respect. But do know that as much as I try to I tend to my own garden, it’s an impossible task to hold down a full time job, blog as much as I do and read ALL the comments on Donklephant. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day. So you can understand again why I’m not a big fan of your idea that one must stay vigilant for hackery on my side of the ideological spectrum when I can’t even keep up with my readers.
However, do I read Memeorandum? Do I look at headlines? Do I click through to Michelle Malkin and Gateway Pundit and Daily Kos and Fire Dog Lake? Sure. And what I find is usually pretty hacky. But then I visit places that are more moderate in tone (like Volokh, QandO, Washington Monthly and TPM) and I find that my opinion is affirmed that there are reasonable places on both sides of the aisle. Certainly much more of a balance than your 100% claim.
So you can think that what I’ve said is revealing, but I simply think you’re placing an expectation on me that I don’t think is realistic. I’d rather lead by example then call others out constantly. I spent my first couple years of blogging trying to do that and it was ultimately tiring and pointless. Once I switched into the “take care of my own blog” mode, we started getting more readers. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
I’m going to move on after this comment because I think we’ve reached a stopping point where we’ll have to agree to disagree, but if you want to email me personally please feel free to do so: justin@donklephant.com
Well, what are you are saying at this point seems reasonable to me, so I’ll retract my criticisms or at least acknowledge them as being OBE.
I do think that a disproportionate number of conservative in the blogosphere deserve credit for being gracious in defeat. And I do think that there are several left-leaning sites that present themselves deceptively as reasonable but which have shown by their behavior over the past several days that they are partisan hacks motivated by hatred even after they win. And while I agree that no one is under an obligation to be “hypervigilant” in condemning their own side, I do think that people have an obligation to be use consistent standards when incidents are specifically pointed out to them. Willful refusal to do that is, to me, a clear sign of partisan hackery.
1) I think half the liberal websites I read have criticized the invasion of “Joe the Plumber”’s personal life. Obsidian Wings, Glenn Greenwald, and Reality-Based Community definitely have, and I believe Kevin Drum did although I’m not sure.
2) The final newspaper-sponsored count of the 2000 election in Florida showed Gore, not Bush, to have the most votes. The recount was completed two months after 9/11, so the accounts tended to be astonishingly gracious to the sitting President: the New York Times story, for example, was headlined “Study of Disputed Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast Deciding Vote”, and the first three paragraphs describe partial-recount scenarios under which Bush would have won Florida. Paragraph four, however, reads
“If all the ballots had been reviewed, under any of seven single standards, and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won”.
Read that carefully. Read it again. In other words, Gore got more votes in Florida, as he did nationwide. In further other words, the voters elected Gore — and yet in the wake of an attack on U.S. territory, that was relegated to fourth-paragraph news. Yes, many liberals were angry. That most of them rallied behind the president post-9/11 despite his having lost the legitimate vote undercuts the entire thesis of this article.
3) Examples of graciousness from Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Anne Coulter — probably the three most widely-listened-to voices of the American Right — would be of interest to me. Please supply us with some.
Brian, why is it that you exonerate the liberal blogosphere on the basis of some that you read which have been behaving in a more upstanding way, while you refuse to acknowledge the graciousness of many on the right because you require Limbaugh, Hannity, and Coulter to change their tune to prove a general lack of rancor? You mention the audience size- OK, so are you actually claiming that the left blogs you mentioned (Obsidian Wings, Greenwald, Reality-based Community, and Drum) garner a larger share of readers than Kos, Huff-Po, Crooks and Liars, and MyDD?
And a couple of people who are routinely villified by the left really did have extremely gracious (and seemingly sincere) reactions to the Obama win- namely, Karl Rove and President Bush. Funny how little mention there has been of that- I couldn’t find a youtube clip of Rove, but I was watching the election coverage on Fox last Tuesday and Rove was one of the first to comment when the election was called and there wasn’t a trace of bitterness or pettiness and nothing but praise for the milestone of a black candidate winning the presidency.
Oh, and Brian- regarding the recount scenarios, you’re right in one respect (and I misstated it) but the reality is that the finding of that report was that the particular recounts that were being requested by Gore would not have resulted in a win for him, and only counting those overvotes would have done so. You also can’t extrapolate from the recounts that Gore would have truly won because recounting in that manner in FL would necessitate recounts in other close states which might have then tipped the EV back to Bush.
The reality is that the election was a statistical tie, which really makes it impossible to say that either man was the ‘true’ winner in an empirical sense. You can only follow the predetermined rules in the most impartial manner possible, and requesting EVERY form of recount and attempting to discern voter intent from improperly marked ballots at the request of one candidate (and refusing to allow courts to overrule those requests under any circumstance) is not the way that’s done.
I hadn’t intended to get into a lengthy argument of this but was just responding to Justin’s rationale for BDS- but I do apologize for misstating my case because I also didn’t intend to distort the facts.
Re: me comparing Obisidian Wings and Glenn Greenwald to Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh: yes, you’re correct, that’s unfair of me, and I’m sorry. I don’t think, however, that it’s more unfair than the original post. The actual right-wing blogs I read (American Conservative magazine, Eunomia, Ross Douthat) are, like the liberal blogs I read, classy; the best-sellers on the right are largely vicious and unforgiving in tone.
Bush was graceful after McCain’s defeat, yes. Note that Obama’s campaign was amazingly light in touch _while the outcome was in doubt_: repeatedly praising McCain as a war hero and honorable man of experience. An even more relevant comparison, there, is Obama during the campaign with McCain during the campaign; McCain was lying about Obama’s tax plan, health care plan, voting record, legislative achievement record, and imaginary relationship with a guy he’d served on a bipartisan education reform board with 12 years ago.
The logical solution to the Florida debacle was to split the electoral votes evenly. I’m glad we’re in agreement that (1) Gore really got more votes but (2) it wasn’t going to be possible to count them all in the necessary time frame. That doesn’t mean liberals haven’t been, on the whole, astonishingly forgiving about Gore of the most votes losing. For all of this, I think the original post’s point is wrong.