There seems to be a desperate campaign on to demonstrate that liberals are not the establishment. It really is funny in a way. After their long march through the institutions, after decades of dominance not only in the official halls of power (that at least have elections for potential changeover ever two, four, or six years) but the unofficial ones of the media, lobbyists, academia, and intellectual salons, liberals, having suffered some partial reverses are campaigning as if they are already wilderness toughened and ready to 'take back' america.
In fact, they're only starting to go through the process of melting away the dross that adheres to any movement in power, the intellectual self-searching that accompanies defeat and regrouping for a shot at the brass ring. A quick run through the great issues of the day and the liberal answer almost entirely consists of either conventional banalities or frightening moonbattery.
There is no equivalent to William F Buckley on the left, an erudite liberal who spends much of his energy in stripping the movement's crazies of any influence as WFB did to the John Birch Society, and later, the Objectivists. Sadly, all political movements need such a figure because the nuts are ever with us and they are remarkably diverse in their ideological madness.
Posted by TMLutas at February 11, 2004 09:05 AM