Professor Rosen cites me

Headline on NYU Professor Jay Rosen's PressThink article:

The Love Affair Between McCain and the Press
Sprains the Brain of the Liberal Blogosphere

McCain sprains brains mainly among the insane.

Professor Rosen cites my comments from yesterday's post -- pointing out that conservative voices have spent years bashing Crazy Cousin John -- and remarks, "This is worth more thought."

You know what else is worth more thought? Natalie Portman.

My point being not just that Natalie Portman is hot -- although, let's face it, she's thermonuclear hot -- but that politics is not the only thing that makes life worth living. If your life is so empty that you're obsessing on politics in a desperate attempt to fill that gaping psychic void, total craziness is the most likely outcome.

Professor Rosen was kind enough to send me an e-mail alerting me to the fact that he'd cited my blog. I sent him an e-mail in reply:

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. As an ex-Democrat myself (I voted for Mondale in '84), I am fascinated by the way some Democrats are blind to the fissures and factions in the GOP coalition. John McCain has been an antagonist of conservatives on so many issues -- campaign finance, immigration, taxes, etc. -- and yet, to hear liberal bloggers tell it, he's a vicious right-winger, ideologically indistinguishable from those conservatives (Coulter, Malkin, Ingraham, etc.) who find him disgusting.

The politics of insanity on the left has grown because of a succession of stressors: The '94 Republican Revolution, the '98 impeachment, the '00 Florida showdown, 9/11, the unexpected '02 midterm defeat, war in Iraq, Bush's re-election. Of course, the overwhelming majority of Americans don't really give a damn about politics, but for some people -- including too many bloggers -- politics is everything. And for rabid Democratic partisans, the past 10-15 years look like a Gotterdammerung. It appears to have driven some of them around the bend.

This is part of the reason I have no trouble saying I don't care who wins in November. Hell, let the Democrats get the White House back, so they no longer have any Evil Neocon Warmonger Scapegoats to haunt their dreams and fuel their propaganda. The country survived Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; it will surive Obama or Hillary.

Besides which, John McCain is a treacherous asshole.

Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy -- the First Three Rules of Journalism.