Via Digby, this great catch form the folks at MMFA:
Bethesda, Md.: I thought that “Why are Liberals So Condescending” was the most intelligent article I’ve read in the Post in some time.
Do you think that this is the result of a decision by your editors to be more fair and balanced?
Also, I would appreciate your comments on the “All serious scientists agree that Global Warming is an enormous problem.” school of thought. This matter has been positioned in exactly the same condescending manner.
Gerard Alexander: I can only tell you that the Post editor I dealt with searched me out, and were as encouraging as any editor could conceivably be.
Your liberal media at work.
In all honesty, the only thing that surprises me about this is that they felt the need to outsource it. Seems to me this could have been handled quite easily in house by Broder, Will, Krauthammer, Gerson, Hiatt, or, let’s face it- anyone on the WaPo op-ed pages not named Eugene Robinson.
General Winfield Stuck
Hey man, Bernie Sanders scares the shit out of me and I love the guy. Prolly make Fred Hiatt sheat his britches. oohhhhh! meany libtards talk down to real Americans. Next thing they will claim Obama is a crummy soshulist taking orders from You Go Chavez.
calling all toasters
Or Harold Meyerson.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
… and that the question wasn’t submitted by DougJ. It reads like one of his stealth parodies.
.
The Dangerman
He’s right; liberals aren’t called un-American, they are called traitors, terrorist pals, etc.
Dumb fucker.
Accidental Blogger
I was kind of surprised it wasn’t Cohen…
Mojotron
There’s also this “counterpoint” from his chat about “what silly things liberals are more likely to believe”:
But which group is more likely to believe that the Bush White House had advanced warning of al Qaeda’s attack on the U.S.?
uhhhh
WaterGirl
BooMan has a post up about Ben Nelson’s latest move. Loved the last sentence, especially the second half:
J
I can’t get the home page to load, no matter what I do (delete browswer cache, etc), but it’ll load if I get a link here from another site. Very weird.
Mike in NC
Definitely right up his alley! Must be buried under a snowdrift.
Donna
Having the same problem as J. Home page won’t load.
Unabogie
Sort of OT, but on another blog someone was touting Huffington Post as a great purveyor of liberal ideals, and it occurred to me that non-Californians might not even remember Arianna in her “original recipe”.
She started out as the wife of a batshit crazy wingnut named Michael Huffington, who was running for Senator as a Republican, bankrolling the whole thing with his own money. Arianna was discovered part of some weird church cult where she was some sort of High Priestess(!). She started a website named resignation.com calling for Bill Clinton to resign over Lewinsky.
Somehow, some way, Michael Huffington declared himself a gay, liberal Democrat, Arianna became a liberal icon, and she’s now the queen bee of misleading headlines and gadfly-ocity.
None of this is to say that she’s not really liberal. Who really knows? It’s more to say that she’s a grifter, just like the rest of these professional poutragers. Her business is outrage, money, and attention. She RAN A CULT, for fuck’s sake. Why does anyone buy into her act?
KCinDC
Yeah, has DougJ specifically disclaimed responsibility for that question?
I’m uncertain what “Pravda on the Potomac” means nowadays. Long ago, maybe in the ’70s, when the Post had some liberal characteristics, the nickname was used by conservatives to indicate that the Post was as leftist as the Communist newspaper.
Then during the Bush years liberals started using it to refer to the way the Post’s editorials generally supported the administration line, much like a government-controlled newspaper in the Soviet Union.
But what’s the similarity to Pravda now?
John Cole
@J: Do me a favor- clear the cache on your browser and try again.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Slight modification:
Improved. ;)
I lol’ed at this since that was the exact same thing I thought when I read it, Professor Douglas J. Spoof hard at work.
Absofuckinglutely.
AnotherBruce
I don’t know why the Post hasn’t searched me out for my well researched article: “Why Are Conservatives So Full of Shit.”
Unabogie
Just a link to complete my threadjack.
Max Power
@Accidental Blogger:
I have a draft of his Cohen’s version of this column. Here’s the lede: “Now I’m a liberal, and admittedly we condescend to conservatives out of habit. But I’m afraid we may be condescending too much lately, and like the President, we’re unwilling to listen to conservative ideas…”.
beltane
@Unabogie: Huffington has always seemed to me to not be so much a grifter as she is a wealthy dilettante or, as such people used to be called, a limousine liberal.
Comrade Luke
Oh goodie.
Democrats want to let the Bush tax cuts expire, but see it as a tough sell.
Yea, you’re really gonna have to sell me on that. I’m not sure where I stand.
wasabi gasp
@J: I’m experiencing the same problem. It’s as if there is no index page set in the .htaccess file.
Elisabeth
@Donna:
Thank goodness. I thought it was my crappy computer. Cleared cache and now I’m all good.
Elisabeth
@Comrade Luke:
Apparently, anything is a tough sell these days. This one really should be easy…so they’ll screw it up.
WaterGirl
@John Cole: I have not had the problem in Safari, but for kicks I tried it in Firefox just now and the page won’t load.
Edit: clearing cache did not help.
AnotherBruce
@Comrade Luke:
From the article you linked:
Tax increases always carry political risk, and raising taxes during a recession could be labeled as hampering economic growth.
So letting reconciliation driven tax cuts expire is now considered “raising taxes”.
I’m really beginning to think that Democrats are moles, they can’t possibly be that stupid, I would be more comforted if they were merely corrupt.
And since when are people making over $250,000 a year in a recession?
John P
Cleared cache. Still can’t load home page.
handy
@Comrade Luke:
Count me in as well. And I’m very concerned about all this government spending. Also.
I hope the Democrats do the responsible thing and consult David Broder.
danimal
@Comrade Luke: Y’all do realize that, for the Dems to let the Bush tax increase take place, they have to do exactly nothing, don’t you? Bush and the Republicans passed this tax hike. This was never a Dem policy. Don’t let them get away with it; the tax hike was written and passed by Bush and the congressional Republican majority.
danimal
Well, Republican congressional majority and weak-spined conservadems.
Unabogie
@beltane:
But that’s my point. She was never a liberal until it suited her. Now she claims to speak for all liberals.
And, she’s in a CULT.
Grifter seems more apropos.
dww44
@J:
I,too, cannot get BJ to load and am somewhat relieved someone else is having the problem. I have been unable to get into BJ all day. Followed a link here from Atrios. Interestingly, I clicked “on consistently wrong since 2002” to get back to main/home and, once again, got a totally blank page. had to go back to eschaton and relink to BJ.
Comrade Luke
@danimal:
Since when does any of that make a difference? As you can tell from the article, it’s already being framed as Republicans calling it a tax hike. And this isn’t even in the mainstream media yet.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Unabogie:
But grifter implies she’s in it for the money. My impression was that she underwrote her blog and publicity seeking with the huge Huffington divorce settlement. I wanna say 50 million, but I can’t remember exactly.
Sally Quinn used to tell a story about her trying to establish herself as a Washington Hostess. One night she miked her dining room b/c she was going to use the transcript of the dinner conversation in a book. Sally was so shocked she almost unclenched her jaw.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I guess Kane, Bacon Bits, Murray, Kornblut, Milbank and a few other hacktastic stenographers were busy.
And the (com)Post wonders why lifetime readers like me won’t ever give them a dime of my money ever again.
Assholes do vex me!
Jean
@Comrade Luke: That just depressed me. What challenge can they rise to? Their own platform is too much for them. And the banks, according to NYT, are “hedging their bets,” and donating to Republicans because of scary finance reform.
If they can’t even vote lockstep on repealing Bush tax cuts, what can they do?
Comrade Luke
@Jean: But like danimal said, they can just do nothing and they’ll expire. They actually have to do something to extend them.
But of course they need 60 votes, and Republicans are voting in lockstep, so I’m sure that would never happen…
Jean
And now the Republican leadership is demanding pre-conditions for attending the summit meeting. One is that reconciliation must be off the table.
Jean
@Comrade Luke: They need 60 votes to do nothing? To let them expire? I don’t get it.
Comrade Luke
The Daily Show is all over the Palin thing from the weekend, and while it’s funny, the sound of her voice is unbearable.
Can you imagine listening to the State of the Union in that voice?
Comrade Luke
@Jean: No, to extend them.
I wonder if they’ll try.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Jean:
On Countdown tonight, I think Olbermann said that a great comeback to taking reconciliation off the table would be “you agree to give health care an up or down vote then”.
That’ll shutemthefuckup. Well, okay it won’t but it should.
Comrade Luke
Oh Jesus Christ. The media is using “the R-word” instead of “retarded”.
I hate these people.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Comrade Luke:
I just read some of the comments on that thread.
Astonishingly, painfully idiotic.
Those fools have no idea whatsoever of how their own government works, and some of them want to put the current admin in jail for simply trying to straighten this mess out.
I can only assume many of them were in some sort of alcohol/drug/mas*turba*tion* induced coma for the Bush years. Absolutely ZERO acknowledgment of the part the GOP’s policies in those years in creating this mess.
None whatsoever… nada… zero… zilch…
Ooops… there’s some more of that ‘librul condescension’, huh?
My bad… it’s just that I’ve lost all tolerance for stupid people.
*didn’t know if that word would set of the moderation alarm… so I tried to outsmart it…
Comrade Darkness
@The Dangerman: Yeah, Bush’s “You’re either with us or against us” carries no implication of anti-american accusation. To a liar or a moron. Or someone who writes for the WaPo.
Sly
Submitted without comment. Just a hearty, out-of-touch, elitist, condescending “Go fuck your mother” to Gerard Alexander.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Comrade Luke:
I’d have to say the GOP most definitely will.
I’m beginning to think they simply want the Federal govt to stop functioning at all and collapse completely. Do they have any idea how BAD that would be for the country?
What is WRONG with those idiots?
AnotherBruce
Christ, I can’t get over this, the Democrats are worried about letting tax cuts expire for those poor working class sots that are struggling to get by on a mere 250 large a year.
They really no longer care about the working poor or the unemployed. It’s all about compassion for the wealthy or well to do for them. At least Republicans are honest about their disdain for people who don’t have the kind of talents or ruthlessness suitable for making piles of money.
A few rich, a much smaller middle class. We’re going to become Central America without the warm climate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@AnotherBruce: Congressman Mike McMahon, Democrat of NY:
I’d love to hear from some of those families struggling to get by on 250K/yr.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and that warm climate, it’s a’comin’
Martin
Sorry, but that article is bullshit. The Dems are trolling the GOP to come out backing the tax cuts before an election when most voters feel like DC is out of touch.
Jesus, guys. Do you really think the bill to extend them would even reach the floor without Sanders filibustering it?
Comrade Luke
Yes, and I don’t think the Democrats are that smart wrt what you claim their stategery is.
Democratic congressmen can’t even play two dimensional chess.
Comrade Darkness
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If you are a partnership or an S corp you have expenses and capital investment to take off the top. You don’t pay taxes on the cost of doing business no matter what kind of incorporation you have.
The Long Lie of the Bush decade rolls on.
Davis X. Machina
Yes, they do. In a flood the tall guys at worst drown last, but at best, if they’re lucky, and the flood stage is only so high, they get to go through the pockets of the corpses. It’s an acceptable risk.
Martin
@Comrade Luke: Look, I realize we haven’t had a hysterical overreaction to something in a while, but this is absurd. Put another way, do you think Obama would *sign* this? And if he’s not inclined to or simply doesn’t want to, how hard would it be for him to send that message to the House or Senate to scuttle this.
Taking seriously the idea that the Dems will extend the tax cuts is lunacy.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Davis X. Machina:
I’ve read/heard several times over the last few years that the secret Republican plan was to deliberately spend the Fed into bankruptcy, forcing an end to ALL discretionary/social spending for decades to come, at the least, a permanent retraction of the size of the govt, and a mass liquidation of the govt’s assets (hint: national parkland) to pay off its creditors.
I’m wagering it’s not quite so secret anymore.
It was a great country while it lasted…
Comrade Darkness
@The Republic of Stupidity: the repubs passing the medicare prescription plan with ZERO plan of paying for it sure makes more sense under this theory.
As to Gerard’s bad memory about conservative leader’s divisiveness vis-à-vis claiming the right to label Real Americans. Saint Sarah tossed that out in her Tea Bagger speech again last weekend. She’s like a crappy cover band that only knows three cords and that’s one of them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Comrade Darkness: Hell, Mika Brezinski, the supposed liberal who brings ‘balance’ to Joe Scarborough said a few weeks ago that Sarah Palin speaks for “real Americans”. The entire concept of the Heartland, which I hate with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns, is based on the idea that some Americans (white, rural, Xian) are more American (white, rural, Xian) than other Americans (urban, “urban”, secular, gay….).
The Republic of Stupidity
@Comrade Darkness:
How much of the current Federal debt was run up by the last three Republican presidents? 70%? More?
Bush CHOSE to fight not one but TWO wars simultaneously while CUTTING taxes and made ABSOLUTELY NO FREAKIN’ATTEMPT whatsoever to come to grips w/ the deficits he ran for eight straight years.
None… at all… nothing… not a bit… zero…
And the G-damned F-in’ Dems did NEXT TO NOTHING to stop it…
I hate ’em both at this point… I just hate Republicans a little bit More… well… mebbe quite a bit more.
But I can’t stand Dems anymore either.
Chad N Freude
@Martin:
In a rational world, yes. In what currently passes for the real world, not so sure.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Chad N Freude:
I second that…
Comrade Darkness
Why are Liberals So Condescending? Yes, we should all try to be tolerant of god’s special angels. The ones not blessed with enough functioning brain cells to recognize that Bush, Cheney and Palin are pathological liars ripping them off and selling their grandkids to foreign bankers.
I spent last week with a pair of five year olds. If anyone so much as hinted that something they did wasn’t perfect. If they weren’t regularly patted on the head and told they were the center of the universe, they would trash the place while screaming at the top of their lungs. It was a fascinating study in republican mentality. Seriously. Watch Palin’s campaign speeches. She pats heads and acts like a doting mom. It’s creepy as hell.
@The Republic of Stupidity: Come now, don’t you remember that comical veto of the first bill the dems sent him? Pork is only for Real America™
AnotherBruce
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The entire concept of the Heartland
Sounds so much better when it’s explained in the original German.
Yutsano
Someone needs to help me out here. Joy Behar (mock me later plz) had some right-winger chick whose first name was Pam that I’d never seen before. She seriously couldn’t put two arguments together to try and defend Sarah Palin or any conservative idea, all she did was screech about how she and Bible Spice were being attacked with no facts whatsoever. I have no idea who the she-clown was, but the shrillness was illuminating. The assistance I need is I have no fucking clue who she is. Anyone help me out with a name?
The Republic of Stupidity
@Comrade Darkness:
You mean the one about stem-cell research?
Perhaps if the Dems had framed the issue differently… claimed they hoped to develop a line of genetically enhanced Super
StormtoopersPatriots to help defend theFatherlandcountry from further attack…Yes… yes… that would have prolly done it…
The Republic of Stupidity
@Yutsano:
Try googling Joy Behar & Pam… was it Pamela Gellar, of “Atlas Shrugs” or whatever…
Mostly whatever…
Yutsano
@The Republic of Stupidity: Yep, that’s her. Jeez talk about unable to hold a cogent thought about anything. The Sarah luv flowing from that woman was beyond scary, and the best part is she did nothing to refute what Stefanie Miller (gotta love that chick!) and Ron Reagan Jr were actually saying. It was astounding.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Yutsano:
Careful… that could well read as some of that ‘snide lib’rul condescension’ we’ve been hearing about…
And then again… it might simply be true…
Whatareyagonnado? Life is rough… especially for idiots.
JGabriel
@The Republic of Stupidity:
It wasn’t a secret, or hasn’t been since the 80’s. One of Reagan’s budget directors (Donald something-or-other?) told everyone about it in his memoirs, to justify the huge debts Reagan racked up.
So it’s not a liberal conspiracy theory — it’s an actual policy described, and admitted, by the Republicans themselves.
.
Yutsano
@JGabriel: Richard Darman? His OMB director I think, he basically sold Reagan on the idea that deficits were good for the economy and Reagan cheerfully agreed. It was a great way of cutting taxes with little political consequences at the time but it was really all smoke and mirrors.
Napoleon
@The Republic of Stupidity:
I bet it is more then 90%.
Napoleon
@Napoleon:
A PS, as I think about it the stimulus combined with the just proposed Obama budget almost certainly takes it below 90% and quite possibly not that far off 70%. Still, considering that a large percentage of the deficit of Obama’s first budget was due to things outside of his control (the economy and decisions of Bush), and only in the fevered tea party swamps was some kind of stimulus not necessary (even AEI credits it for helping), if one could somehow attribute who caused the percentage of the debt I think it would be up over 90% on the Republicans.
Linda Featheringill
To Jim, foolish literalist:
Mika Brezinski, a liberal? omg! Compared to whom? Hermann Goering? Geez!
WereBear
@Sly: Well.
Does Alexander realize he’s just invalidated Palin’s whole platform?
Rick Taylor
They won an election with this, using it against Al Gore. They tried it against Obama (arugula, bitter). It hasn’t worked as well this time, but that doesn’t stop them.
El Cid
So, I guess it was respectful and all when Republicans at their 2004 Republican National Convention went around wearing purple bandaids to mock the actual war record of the veteran running for President as a Democrat because there were bullshit conspiracy theories of him being a deserting liar, in favor of a tough-talking Andover cheerleader who never served in war.
Egilsson
The first real blast of republican / conservative hate and condescension that really struck me was the 1992 republican convention. What an ugly, vicious affair. And it’s continued and worsened since then.
Gerard Alexander’s article and theory is so offensive and dishonest. At bottom, it’s a repackaging an old smear against liberals that they are elites – the old Wallace / Nixon smear.
I’m a liberal, I’m a single dad, working stiff, struggling to pay bills, former little league coach, volunteer on a charity, work 2 jobs – and I’m some sort of condescending, not really real america elite?
Alexander couldn’t even keep his narrative straight – (a) he wants to depolarize the debate and have a rational conversation and both sides are to blame; (b) the “liberals” have a greater character flaw and condescend to conservatives, who behave better and who don’t offer equally as many offensive examples.
I want to see a counterpoint column, “Why are Conservatives lying bitches?”
FormerSwingVoter
I love how “fair and balanced” has become a dog whistle for “right-wing echo chamber that will challenge none of your deranged assumptions about how evil and treasonous liberals are”.
El Cid
@Egilsson: One thing is that no matter your actual empirical life circumstances, if you hold ‘liberal’ views, that in and of itself makes you an elitist.
Howlin Wolfe
@Davis X. Machina: Well played!
Waynski
@Jim, Foolish Literalist — I grew up in the NYC suburbs and now live in Manhattan. My wife and I together make 250k. With high NY state taxes, a NYC income tax, and a brilliantly Bushian rule in the AMT that punishes us at tax time because we pay TOO MUCH in taxes, we end up owing the Feds several thousand dollars every year — hard to believe but true. We live in a pleasant one-bedroom in a nice neighborhood and don’t go out much (average price for a one bedroom in Manhattan was until recently perhaps, $800,000 — we rent), We take some vacations during the year. We don’t manage to save much money, although we contribute liberally to 401ks. All in all, our existence is what I think people in most of the rest of the country would call middle class. That said, a 5% increase in our taxes will not likely break the bank.
However, if we had children with all their expenses, owned cars, maintained a house in the also very expensive NY suburbs, and had to pay $500 a month (or a $1,000 a month if both spouses are commuting) to take the train into the city everyday, I can see it making a big difference. McMahon, I believe, represents the Long Island suburbs. A couple like this certainly wouldn’t go homeless, but they might have to move, or take on extra work, or some other life altering event to adjust for the lost income. If you’re these people’s Congressman, that’s going to rightfully concern you. It costs A LOT of money to live in this area in a manner that most middle class Americans are comfortable with, which is why our pay is so much higher, but it’s all relative to cost of living. There are other cities in the country where this is true as well. I’m writing all this to point out that when a Congressman like McMahon says a $250k couple is “just making ends meet” he’s probably engaging in some hyperbole, but not as much as it may seem and not everyone making $250k is “rich”. I’m in favor of letting the Bush cuts expire as it probably won’t affect me much, but for some families in high cost of living areas, it will have a bigger impact than you may think.
Comrade Darkness
@Waynski: It’s a change in the MARGINAL tax rate. It will not touch the tax rate anyone is paying on the first 250k. We are talking about (from a quick glance) a change from 33% back to the 2001 rate of 39.6%. A 6.6% increase. So if you were making 300k you would pay 6.6% more on that last 50k. Which is a $3300. Personally, where I sit, the 250k and up with their paltry 15% on cap gains, have been freeloading for a decade. If $3300k means you have to trade your lexus in for a honda, you were living too high on the hog already. Time to suck it up. Everyone else has already cut their lifestyle.
liberal
Comrade Darkness wrote,
LOL! The wife and I gross about $250K, or we did until she went 80% time (we have young twins). Almost none of that is cap gains.
Your point about the marginal rate is absolutely true, and your claim that someone like me can afford to pay more federal income tax is absolutely true. But it diverts attention from the (a) the fact that “wealth” and “is rich” should be defined in terms of assets, not income, and (b) the truly wealthy (not someone making roughly $250K and using that to slowly build assets) pay almost no taxes at all.