Decorum and Politics - Part II

I had no intention of touching on this subject again this morning but the first thing I read today was this post by Gary Gross at the California Conservative.

Actually, Charlie, you're only half right. When lefty bloggers ratchet up the hatred, their readership jumps. The more outrageous, the better the "ratings". When center-right bloggers ratchet up the hatred and nonsense, their readership drops like a rock There's an easy explanation for that: When I read a righty blogger like Hugh Hewitt or Captains Quarters, it's because I expect to gain new insight based on verifiable information. As an example, just in the last 2 weeks, Hugh's taught a ConLaw class as it pertains to the NSA wiretapping and Captain Ed's schooled us on Tuesday's Canadian elections.

When a lefty blogger says of Mrs. Alito "Do we want a judge who would marry such a weak-willed bitch?", am I supposed to take that seriously? And this is the norm, not the exception. It's impossible to not notice the total lack of seriousness. The lefty bloggers are indeed the wild, wild west, Charlie, but I'd dare you to prove that on the right.

He's makes a very valid point. The Charlie that Gross refers to is Charlie Cook who has this piece up at Real Clear Politics. Gross disagrees with Cook's conclusions and I guess so do I. Cook says:

But an unreasonable share of today's political conversation is venomous and lacking any effort at accuracy or fairness. I blame this problem first on the rise of political food-fight shows on cable television, on radio talk shows, and most recently on the Internet, where political discourse has become the Wild West.

I say that the root of the problem Cook is trying to explain stems from two things:

1. The protest movement of the 60's devolved into a shout to be heard, don't let the other guy speak, any form of protest is conceivable and acceptable (which gets us the taking over of government or university buildings, naked protests, the throwing of pies, food or feces and even worse). If you look at any of the driving force protest groups of the left today (MoveOn.org, Code Pink, etc) you'd see them led by college age kids who don't know any better and who have never held a real job and older "hippy-types" who are trying to relive their glory days of the 60's. Those are the people who are determining the course of the discussion on the left.

2. The Democratic Party's lock step Party Platform. Woe to the Democrat who's Pro-Life or pro school vouchers. That candidate may win a local election but he'd never win nationally if he remained a Democrat. I'm surprised the Democratic party hasn't lost more Catholics to the Republicans. My Catholic parents would be aghast at the abortion on demand policies of the Democrats today and the fact that they sent six kids to parochial schools probably gives you a good idea where they would stand on school vouchers. The only candidate I think my parents would look up to today would be Joe Lieberman who is being ostrcized by the party because of his views on the War on Terror (Joe's not marching in lock step - so Joe must pay a price in today's Democratic Party).

You can find Part I of my argument from yesterday here.