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The Acid Test

Posted By Matt On 6th June 2005 @ 18:29 In Politics, Media Criticism, The Downing Street Memo | 5 Comments

In the middle of a post about the Daniel Okrent-Paul Krugman debate (The Price of Being Too Popular), James Wolcott lets loose this fiery arrow:

Krugman, under persistent mortar attacks from conservative pests and perturbed liberal allies — many of whom are the sort of useless lefties Saul Alinsky disposed of in Rules for Radicals as the milquetoasts who agree with your message, but not your methods, or agree with what you say but wish you wouldn’t express yourself so intemperately (i.e., the type of well-meaning ineffectual whiner who’ll have NPR piped into his or her coffin) [. . .]

Such “liberal allies” often attack vitriolic bloggers such as Steve Gilliard, whom they find too harsh.

If the Democratic party hopes to regain power, it must take courage from the take-no-prisoners style of writers like Wolcott, Krugman, Rich, and Gilliard, and guidance from politicians like Harry Reid and Howard Dean. We have to fight fire with fire, without apology. Because while Democrats fret about offensive words, the Republicans are busy plotting offensive actions.

Or, as another writer put it:

To be, or not to be? That is the question—
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?

’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.