June 30, 2004
What Matters
filed under: Stuff to be pissed off aboutIn a stunningly deft flourish of bloggy incest, here is a post from Tim Dunlop's The Road to Surfdom which I highly recommend reading, which I found out about by reading this article on The Poor Man which I read about in this entry by Atrios.
I followed the Atrios link because I wanted to write something about the Nicholas Kristof column in today's NY Times (registration required but free), which I read part of over someone's shoulder on the subway this morning, because the bit that I read over the guy's shoulder kinda pissed me off. See, Kristof is upset that liberals are calling Bush a "Liar," which he compares to wingnuts having implied that Clinton murdered Vince Foster.
Which, if you think about it for a moment, is ABSURD. Because in the same column, Kristof admits "In fact, of course, Mr. Bush did stretch the truth." So calling him an outright "liar" is really a matter of degree - it's removing nuance, but not changing the whole subject. Whereas, when they accused the Clintons of having Vince Foster killed, the wingnuts were simply MAKING SHIT UP.
When I read all the blogging that's already been done today on the Kristof column, I assumed that my partially informed impression had been correct, and that Kristof was in fact "human scum" as Atrios would have it. But then I actually went and read the whole column, and found that I agreed with more of it than not. For instance:
Mr. Bush got us into a mess by overdosing on moral clarity and self-righteousness, and embracing conspiracy theories of like-minded zealots. How sad that many liberals now seem intent on making the same mistakes.
Now - agreeing with much of the Kristof column does NOT mean I think Bush is not a liar. Just that Kristof makes other, more tolerable, points and rightly warns against the left sinking to the lowly standards of the right. Right?
Anyway, the point is (and yes, there is one, despite appearances to the contrary) that the Road to Surfdom post up top (here it is again) is worth your time. Mostly because the list of things that "Don't Matter" includes only actual honest to goodness facts.
UPDATE: Meteor Blades has weighed in over at Daily Kos with a pretty comprehensive take on the Kristof article. He agrees that civil discourse is an important goal in an enlightened democracy, and civilly discourses Kristof's ass pretty thoroughly. Good reading.
Posted by rjt at June 30, 2004 04:52 PM