The netroots eat their own
Earlier today, Think Progress trashed liberal pundit Mark Shields for allegedly saying, with regard to Obama’s patience on Afghanistan,
[It] makes me nostalgic for those days when we had a manly man in the White House who could say, “Let’s kick some tail and ask questions afterwards” you know? That’s what we really need instead of any reflection.
Kevin Drum read TP’s post and seconded the motion, albeit with more circumspection and less vitriol. But to his credit, Kevin read the comments on his post and apologized.
Why? The quote was accurate. But if you watch the one-minute clip embedded in TP’s post, it is more than obvious that Shields is being sarcastic and mocking conservatives who criticize Obama. Extra credit to Kevin for admitting that he put up his post without even watching the clip.
Now, if you really want to see the netroots at their worst, read the comment thread at the end of the original post on TP. Both the ignorance and the viciousness are disturbing. According to Comment #14:
What we really need is gutless fat *ssed scum like [Shields] getting the beatdown of your life from the families of those who have paid the ultimate price in wars cheered on by your spineless, unaccountable pontificating.Shields is nothing but another worthless piece of sh*t in a long line of tough guy chickenhawks.
Incidentally, Shields is a Marine Corps veteran. And that comment is just par for the course, not just one ugly comment I picked out to pass judgment on the netroots. To their credit, a handful of commenters insist that Shields was being sarcastic. Others know so little about Shields they call him conservative.
Full disclosure: There’s plenty of insanity in the far-right blogosphere as well. But the attack on Shields is so bizarre I thought it deserved a post.
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6 Comments - add your own
M. Bouffant — November 16, 2009 at 9:59 pm
This sort of comment* is so common to the Washington Village/Beltway yada yada crowd, that (especially coming from someone who’d essentially be off the radar were it not for his being opposite David Brooks every Friday) it isn’t terribly surprising that people failed to see the sarcasm immediately.
Not that they shouldn’t have watched & listened before typing, the source being the video.
*See: David Broder typing that the President must just DECIDE!! not waste time thinking about possibilities & consequences of further Afghanistan involvement.
Mikeybackwards — November 17, 2009 at 10:07 pm
I understand your caveat about far-right blogosphere.
However, having just been treated to the evisceration of Dede Scozzofava, the shredding of Anh “Joseph” Cao, the Charleston County, SC GOP censure of Lindsey Graham for ‘cooperating with the enemy’, the calls to purge Olympia Snowe because she suggested she might not filibuster any and all attempts to reform health insurance . . . ad infinitum, ad nauseum as opposed to a few dozen comments on a couple of websites, and I hardly get the impression that the left netroots are ‘eating their own’ on anything like the piranha feeding frenzy scale going on throughout the establishment and the rank and file membership of the Republican party and the right.
Bon appetit!
David Adesnik — November 18, 2009 at 11:37 am
It’s almost impossible to quantify which extreme has more craziness. Arguing which side is worse is basically pointless.
My agenda this: Make sure people know the craziness is very real on both sides. Why? Because so many people preoccupy themselves with only the other side, in order to justify their own politics.
Given that I’m a lifelong resident of the northeast, you can imagine that I mostly come across liberals who think only conservatives are nuts.
Mikeybackwards — November 18, 2009 at 11:40 pm
David –
The problem is not that there are some seriously unbalanced people on the left as there are on the right. The problem is that you threw up an inflammatory headline as if the few dozen commenters on 2 websites was the sum total or even representative of the left netroots (even as you note that members of the left netroots tried to rein in the ignorance and absurdity of those few.
You post this as if this is somehow news- or note-worthy. It is the same problem with Sonny Brunch’s trying to compare an image that was posted in one venue and received a grand total of 19 comments (both in favor and against the image) and not referenced anywhere else with an image that was reproduced in many venues with hundreds of comments and trying to say the images and the reaction were equivalent.
You seem like an intelligent fellow, and your education and c.v. seem to support that. Given that education, I would have thought you would have learned something about logical fallacies as well as the difference between rhetoric and polemic.
To me this is not an argument about which is worse as I have always conceded that there are those on both sides who offend. Rather this is presenting information in a manner that is intellectually honest and does not in itself try to paint one side as worse.
To do otherwise is to fail in that to which you claim to aspire in the best case, and to exacerbate the problem in the worst case. It really is pretty simple, even if it seems as if it is inscrutable to either you or Sonny.
David Adesnik — November 19, 2009 at 10:53 am
I deeply regret that I have failed to live up to my own education and c.v. So much tuition wasted.
I understand you feel duped. My headline promised a comprehensive look at the netroots, but only offered one anecdote.
Come on, mikey. The headline was clever. The attack on Shields was noteworthy. I even included a disclaimer saying this wasn’t evidence that the left is worse than the right.
What will it take to make you happy? What will it take to prevent your subversion of my self-esteem? I don’t know if I can hold out much longer against such reasonable and temperate criticism.
Mikeybackwards — November 22, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Perhaps a little intellectual honesty.
You think the attacks by a handful of fringe and anonymous commenters on a blog is noteworthy but ignore the rush to the right and the party purges of those who aren’t seen as ideologically pure (shades of communism anyone)* as not?
*No, I’m not suggesting that the Republicans are Communists (unlike the Republicans’ accusations against anyone who doesn’t pass their ‘tests’), however, the ‘rush to the right’ was an intended pun. I’m just being clever.