Who exactly is the near left? Joe Lieberman I guess, but is there anybody else? The wingnut spectrum seems like a very weird place.
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by Tim F| 68 Comments
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not anonymous
Well, if the righties are anyone to go by, McCain.
4tehlulz
Bill Clinton
Elvis Elvisberg
Arlen Specter.
Tim
Was this question in reference to the real world or wingnut world? If your asking about the real world, then sure, the Clintons, Jim Webb, Harry Reid and maybe even someone like Lincoln Chaffee could be considered “near left” but in Wingnut land? No such animal. Wingnuts don’t do spectrums It’s either/or and nothing in between. In 80s computer terms. Wingnuts only have a Hercules graphics adapter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Graphics_Card
cleek
“far-left” is just a slur. and it tells me that the author isn’t trying to make any kind of serious argument, and is probably just beating on a strawman. it’s gotten to the point where i’ll stop reading a piece as soon as i see it.
and, sadly, the label “far-right” is used in almost the same way.
Dennis - SGMM
Which of the snake’s two heads would you prefer to be bitten by?
jrg
There is no “near left”, it’s all “far left”. In fact, about 80% of the country is “far left” by Fox news standards.
One of the dumbest things (among the many) the Repubs have done in the past few years is to take a “With the GOP or against America” mentality, then force a majority of Americans into the “Against the GOP” camp.
“Liberal” and “Far Left” used to be safe pejoratives for them to use. Now it just serves to remind the majority exactly who it is that stands in idealogical opposition to the flat earthers, the gay bashers, the jingoists, and the morons who are spending this country into the ground.
Ed Drone
I agree — it’s a meaningless term. Like how ‘liberal’ is only part of a word; the full technical term is ‘tax and spend liberal.’
But who cares what the right-whingers say? The whinge-nuts are outside the ‘reality’ sphere, anyway.
Ed
Punchy
Clearly, today it’s General Petraeus.
Tomorrow it’ll be Clarence Thomas, and in 3 months, it’ll be Ann Coulter.
Helena Montana
Joe Lieberman, “near left”? No way. He’s NOWHERE near left. Bill Clinton, as somebody pointed out above, fits the bill. Or at least he used to cautiously approach left–once.
Dennis - SGMM
The whole left/right bit has been skewed all out of shape by the gerrymandering that pushes incumbents to adopt extreme positions in order to fend off attacks from those closer to the fringes of their own parties.
Face
OT:
The….economy….wow, this cannot be good. God damn. Cratering like this is supposed to happen only to pharmaceutical companies when their drugs fail, or bulletin-boarders.
Serious shit, IMO.
Paul L.
The country (according to C&L) supports gun control.
So why do the Democrat/Liberals avoid promoting Gun Control and fighting the Gun Lobby.
Run on “I will ban Handguns”.
incertus
Maybe Jon Chait?
Evilbeard
Hi Paul L, how are you? Oh and what the f&*k is your point sir?
caustics
Any Democrat who is not a card-carrying, doctrinaire socialist.
Of these, as any non-squishy wingnut will tell you, Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller are the only living examples.
Halteclere
In Wingnut World, “near left” is anyone who should be 1) already “left” or 2) recently been driven to the left – i.e. Democrats, Fiscal Conservatives, respecters of the Constitution, the Law and Civil Liberties, honorers of the Geneva Conventions, non-pussified scaredy-cats of brown (and black!) people – but who still says stupid things similar to the wingnuts vacuous ideology.
See Sen. Lieberman, Zell Miller, Joe Cline, Tim Russell (though their wingnut brethren don’t yet recognize the media people who share their affliction) among others.
Dennis - SGMM
In the words of that martial arts classic, Kung Pow: Return of the Fist, “Pay no attention to Wimp Lo, we trained him wrong as a joke.”
Ninerdave
Paul only posts when he’s so drunk he can barely see, thus whatever point he’s trying to make gets lost in translation. He and JWW should be viewed as performance art.
Paul L.
I was illustrating the point that when the left/liberals say that the whole county agrees with them about a issue, it usually is complete bullsh*t.
Evilbeard
No, it really seemed he was trying to make a point. Clearly it wasn’t a very good attempt, although he might say we are too thick to understand, but I definitely sensed something. A disturbance in the Force perhaps? As if a million intellects cried out in anguish at the state of their country and were suddenly silenced.
Evilbeard
Hahaha sorry about the Star Wars. My son is watching Clone Wars in the other room and I think it is acting synergisticly with my flu meds.
jcricket
Uh Oh – Looks like the “tone it down” police are gonna come after us.
Evilbeard
How does your linking to C&L show that though? You pick one of ten items they linked to polls that shows Americans are in favor of more controls on guns than are there are currently. The poll also shows that Americans believe (73%) that they have a right to own guns.
Maybe I am just too addled by my flu meds but I just don’t see where the “bullsh*t” comes into play here.
jcricket
It’s like the universe in land of the lost, where things wrap around and fold back in on each other. Or it’s a tesseract or something.
Normally “right-leaning” folks are suddenly “terrorist-enabling-lefties” if they oppose repealing civil liberties or legalizing unlimited domestic warrantless wiretapping.
The commenter above who described it as “GOP v. America” really had it right. It’s as if they think Tancredo/Hunter would be the most awesome ticket ever ™.
cbear
Did somebody fart here?
OK, who did it?
Goddamnit, I know somebody farted and it would better to just own up to it.
Fuckin kids.
jcricket
I think the “logic” goes something like, “B/C Democrats won’t run with the platform that explicitly embraces all the ideas the American public supports, they are wrong”.
The reality, as you pointed out, is that the American public sometimes holds contradictory ideas, and that the voting public is often quite different than the public at large. So political calculus plays a role in deciding which ideas are part of your platform, not just raw popular support.
That said, Democrats could do worse than learning to embrace the notion that the American public is already on the side of the Democrats. It’s just that the public buys the Republican caricature of the Democrats. If the Democrats get the public to understand where the party actually stands, I’d expect Paul would get his wish :-)
4tehlulz
McCain: al Qaeda haet me!
So if casualties end up being down, did the surge work, or does al Qaeda support the Democrats by….not attacking our troops?
Zifnab
Joe Klein, Chris Matthews, David Broder, and Judith Miller? John McCain? Condalizza Rice (cause she’s black and a woman)? Bush 41? Anyone who thinks we shouldn’t use nukes on Iran when we start bombing it?
What does this have to do with the Duke Rape Scandal and how is it Nifong’s fault?
MJ
What you are not considering is the perspective of how you see things is slanted. What I have noticed reading this blog and the comments is that anybody that supports the war in Iraq is considered a wingnut. If a person isn’t with you on this issue they are belittled with name calling. The view of right and left has become one dimensional here.
Joe Lieberman votes with the liberals in the US Senate the vast majority of the time but most of the people here hate his guts and are glad there is a (I) next to his name now and not a (D).
Another example I have seen here is with Glenn Reynolds. He is pro-choice, pro gay marriage and even at times votes for Democrats but he is considered a wingnut by the folks here.
cbear
Good point.
Now fuck off, scrote.
dslak
I take it that “wingnut” means something like “right-wing hack.” That’s why it applies to Glenn Reynolds. Even if he may occasionally vote for a Democrat, he’ll still attack them for not being Republican. He knows his audience.
The near/far left distinction is inadequate for capturing political reality. Lieberman is a liberal hawk, but since our mainstream dialogue is conceptually impoverished, he ends up falling on the right.
Dennis - SGMM
It’s so simple:
Everyone to the right of me is a Fascist whose deluded beliefs will destroy this great nation.
Everyone to the left of me is a Moonbat whose deluded beliefs will destroy this great nation.
Glenn Reynolds and Joe Lieberman are Fascist-Moonbats or Moonbat-Fascists, depending.
Dork
Iraqi citizens?
cbear
No, he’s not. He is a self-serving, smarmish, cretinous, traitorous asshole whose foremost constituencies are himself and Israel.
In fact, he may be the greatest asshole of this political generation.
I live in perpetual hope that he becomes infected with that flesh-eating bacteria or something equally dreadful. I’d even pay a surcharge on my cable fees to be able to watch the progression of the illness in real time.
jenniebee
fixed
As for MJ, what can one say? There’s more to being a wingnut than blowing up pictures of fetuses. As a matter of fact, actually running things in conservativeland requires you be every other part of wingnut but that.
The Grand Panjandrum
Speaking only for myself since no else counts:
Trust me. I was wrong once, but I was mistaken. So please stop with all the ridiculous petty chatter follow my link to the fabulous data that proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am right. I’ll be passing out appropriate talking points at the end of the class.
/p.lukasiak
Cyrus
Far right is the people actively pushing for more war, more tax breaks for the rich, and more government intrusion into peoples’ sex lives. Near right is the people who don’t talk about that stuff, but just happen to vote for it because they’re pro-business or they say the Democrats are worse.
Assuming you’re genuinely ignorant rather than being a troll, I’ll try to explain. Lieberman is as right-wing as anyone on the war. He is (well, was) Sean Hannity’s favorite Democrat. From 2001 to 2006, his entire reason for existence was providing bipartisan cover for invading Iraq and insulting critics of the war.
Zifnab
He campaigns for Republicans (who certainly do NOT vote with liberals in the US Senate the vast majority of the time), sits on his hands in the Senate Oversight Committee, and plays the role of Zell Miller as a Democrat who chastises other Democrats. He is from a deep blue state, and his victory in ’06 blocked Ned Lamount, who would have voted and campaigned for other progressive Dems rather than cheerleading the centerpiece fuckup of the Bush Administration.
Saying, Lieberman is “just for the war”, would be like saying a 60s Democrat was “just for segregation” or a 70s Democrat was “just in support of Vietnam” or an 80s Democrat was “just opposing the EPA”. These were benchmark, signature issues for each generation. To be “just for Iraq” is to be “just for” massive misuse of the military, rampant corruption and waste of tax-dollars to the tune of trillions, torture, state-sponsored genocide, and the complete disregard for human liberty and national sovereignty.
Lieberman is perpetuating war crimes purely for political gain. There’s no “just” about that. If he’s not with the Dems on the War, I don’t give a crap about how he votes on video game violence and school uniforms.
Dennis - SGMM
Please, cbear, when you vilify that sanctimonious, unprincipled, backstabbing, Bush-loving little turncoat you lower the tone of the discourse here.
Martin
It’s not that the public holds contradictory views, it’s that the views are nuanced past the point that fat headed pundits can (or are willing to) discern.
Take abortion. 2/3 would call themselves pro-choice. 2/3 would also call themselves anti-abortion. Contradictory? No.
The 1/3 overlap feels that abortion isn’t a legislative issue but a moral one, that you have the right to choose, but shouldn’t except in the most extreme cases.
Too good not to share: Colbert on guns in bars for those who missed it.
SamFromUtah
Near left = blue dog, I’m guessing.
I.e., do everything the Redoublechins want, but call yourself a democrat or independent.
jenniebee
LOL – anybody else seen Ezra Klein’s blurb for Matt Ygleasias’s book?
cbear
Dennis,
Agreed, everything before and after “Lieberman, greatest asshole” in my comment was both superfluous and redundant anyway.
BTW, would you please repost your infamous “Clinton/sucks the dick” comment in the thread.
I want to send it to some bros over in BKK and can’t find it.
Tx.
Dennis - SGMM
“Maybe you cross the commander-in-chief threshold when you taste another woman’s lipstick on your husband’s dick.”
Asti
Well, if it’s anything like “near beer” it isn’t LEFT at all.
cbear
Masterful.
Now let me get back to lowering the discourse:
Did I mention that I’d like to see Joe Lieberman greased-up with seal oil and thrown out on the ice for the polar bears?
tBone
I blame Hillary.
It would have been fun to hear their conversation. I’m guessing there were lots of awkward pauses.
It’s a nice idea, though. I think we should revive the spirit of the old Civility Thursdays here and have “No Primary Bullshit Fridays” or something.
Anyone who doesn’t agree with me is obviously a drooling idiot in thrall to their evil master (_________ insert your preferred candidate here), and should immediately proceed to go fuck themselves.
Dennis - SGMM
How about slathered with banana oil and thrown to a pack of mountain gorillas?
Actually, I’d like to see the Dems pick up a few more Senate seats so that Lieberman’s next assignment would be towel boy in the Senate washroom.
Dork
Holy shit, it’s….{drum roll}….Mukasey!
Can’t wait to hear Hannity’s take on this one.
tBone
So he’d have to start literally blowing Republican lawmakers, instead of just figuratively?
I approve of this plan.
cbear
Fixed…with a tip of the hat to Mel Brook’s “History of the World”.
Dennis - SGMM
Few know that Lieberman invented ballistic kneepads.
cbear
How bout, smear honey all over his ass and drop the mangy prick off on Kodiak Island?
Fwiffo
It seems that redstate.com has come to fear warrantless searches – completely without irony.
Apparently, DC police are going to be knocking on doors asking for consent to search the home, but without a warrant. The great civil liberties defenders at Redstate are very concerned about 4th amendment issues, echoing the position of the ACLU. Why does Redstate hate America? Why are they siding with criminals and terrorists?
Read the diary here.
Oh – they’re not wiretapping phone conversations, they’re looking for guns. It all makes sense now.
Dennis - SGMM
Fwiffo, great catch! It never occurs to the bozos who cheer while “they” go after someone else that “they” might some day come for them.
mark
If we require warrants for
tapping your phonessearching for your guns, the terrists win!caustics
Yeah, but some of the comments feel like the spoofs have been getting a better foothold there. I liked this one in particular:
Of course, I could be wrong.
jcricket
Sadly, you probably are. I bet that was written with a completely straight face.
It also highlights why the right is doomed. The cognitive dissonance will eventually explode their heads.
The Other Steve
It’s really really really really bad.
The problem is liquidity. Most financial institutions make their money by moving money from A to B and skimming a bit off the top.
The problem is, there’s not much B, and there’s no A. If there was more B the interest rates would go up such that greed would encourage more A.
LarryB
Charitably: It’s like those old joke maps of the US where 80% of the page is a street map of Manhattan, 15% is all of New Jersey and San Francisco is a little spot at the top margin.
Really: Agree with others that it’s a slur. Repubs have been very successful since Reagan in trashing the liberal “brand”. Due to their transparent mendacity and amazing incompetence at governing, we now get to return the favor. Modern conservatives have proven that they are greedy, short-sighted, ignorant, prejudiced, cowardly liars who hate liberty, justice, and the American way. It’s almost like the anti-Boy Scout motto.
Randolph Fritz
Hilary Clinton & Barack Obama, of course. There is no US far left. At least, if there are any Trotskyite Democrats, they make themselves awfully scarce.
TenguPhule
Posted without comment.
TenguPhule
If you still support the clusterfuck in Iraq after all evidence that it was a bad idea gone horribly wrong, you are a fucking wingnut.
Better trolls please.
Chuck Butcher
Tim F
If you ever figure this out, let me know. I am pretty sure I’m a lefy Dem, but a lot of people are confused by me. Somehow advocating for a clear and plain reading of the 2nd Amendment and stating that illegal hiring is crushing blue collar wages makes me suspect. How odd, I don’t want to be disarmed in the face of right wing nut cakes and oppose a plutocratic agenda and I’m not left? Ah, I warn readers on my site that thinking they’ve got a niche figured for me is a mistake.
louisms
To conservatives, the words Far and Left are inseparable- like Frivolous and Lawsuit or Radical and Islam.
MJ
Thank you for reinforcing my point.
Better snark please.
jcricket
Yeah, the continued bad news on calculated risk or Yahoo finance (the only two finance sources I really read) is really frightening. Not much I can do about it beyond what I have (6 months emergency fund, fixed rate mortgage, no other debt, stable job)… So I’ve been trying to pretend somehow it will be worse than most are thinking, but not as bad as the doom sayers.
Otherwise, what are we gonna do? If we go to Depression levels of unemployment and defaulting we’re all screwed, only probably worse than last time, because Republicans are out there also fucking over the government’s ability to help.