I’m picking up a few disturbing signs of stress in liberals lately, and I just thought I’d point them out. I don’t think any of these incidents on their own are significant, but taken together they might signal foundational cracks in the structure.

First item: I just watched the Daily Show for August 2nd, the one in which Jon Stewart grilled Congressman Bonilla (R-TX) over the source of the “Kerry is most liberal, Edwards is 4th most liberal” spin that the Republicans have been spouting ad nauseum. (The Angry Bear has a partial transcript) Jon Stewart got kudos ‘round the blogosphere for ripping this apart. Granted, Stewart did have his facts straight, and the Congressman was sadly mistaken if he thought he could just parrot the talking points and survive the Daily Show buzz saw.

But here’s the thing: Stewart kind of baited the guy. He didn’t let the Congressman talk and pounce when there was an opportunity. Instead, Stewart—rather inartfully—got the Congressman to talk about what Stewart wanted to talk about. It was kind of a one-way conversation, not a fair fight. Not that Bonilla didn’t deserve it, but that’s the kind of thing I expect from Bill O’Reilly, not Jon Stewart.

So here’s thing number two: Digby links to a report from Salon where the reporter claims that a Secret Service agent ordered him to stand during the presentation of the colors at the Democratic National Convention. It seems like the agent knew that he’d gone over the top, but he didn’t back down and came off being kind of a prick.

So, okay. Fine. Here’s the problem. Digby says “Totally unprofessional, totally out of line and totally unamerican. When exactly did the Secret Service become the guardians of patriotism?” Well, never, of course. And it wasn’t the entire Secret Service. It was one guy, but Digby is ready to proclaim that this is the beginnings of a new Police State. This guy should’ve been given a tongue-lashing by his superior and maybe a suspension, but to smear the whole Secret Service with the same brush based on what this guy did is way over the top. Plus, when the agent says he was a Marine and he doesn’t like when people show disrespect for the flag, you can kind of see where his anger and misplaced patriotism might have gotten the better of him.

And here’s the third thing, and this really set me off: Under the headline Bush Blog Attacks Firefighters, Atrios quotes an adolescently stupid slam on firefighters written by a Republican police officer. The title of Atrios’ post makes it look like the Bush Blog uses this quote, but in fact the Bush Blog quotes a different part of the article and only links to the original National Review piece without further comment.

So later I see that TalkLeft and Seeing the Forest have more-or-less copied and pasted the story from Eschaton, echoing the outrage.

In the comments at Seeing the Forest, I wrote:

The smear you quote is unbelievable, but it’s not the Bush Blog that makes the smear, it’s the person who wrote the article which is linked from the Bush Blog. Is there something I don’t understand about this? Is linking to a smear article the same as smearing something yourself?
Stumax | Email | Homepage | 08.04.04 – 12:19 pm | #

To which the original poster replied:

“Is linking to a smear article the same as smearing something yourself?”
Yes.
Dave Johnson | Email | Homepage | 08.04.04 – 12:33 pm | #

Really. So if I quote from Mein Kampf, that’s the same as saying I want to exterminate the Jews?

The frustrating thing about this is that this is the same kind of fuzzy logic that gets Democrats up in arms in the first place. “Linking to an article with a smear is the same as smearing” is the same kind of logical construction as “Saddam having talks with al Qaeda is the same as Saddam bombing the World Trade Center.” Or “Saddam has aluminum tubes, therefore Saddam has nuclear weapons.” This leaves our side vulnerable to attacks from their side, and they’re much more skilled fighters than we are.

These three incidents represent a—potential—collective Liberal problem, and the problem is that outbursts like these, attacks like these, are born of righteous frustration, of a feeling of impotence. Liberals feel disenfranchised, lied to, manipulated, and powerless, and they’re starting to strike back. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but going down into the gutter with these guys, fighting illogical, emotional slander with illogical, emotional slander is going to be the Democrats’ undoing. The Republicans will seize on these missteps and turn them to their advantage.

It’s been a long slog already. I sympathize. Between the blatant lies of the Administration, the war, the economy, the shredding of the Constitution, the vicious personal attacks, Fox News and the rest of the Conservative Media… it’s been really tough for Liberals to have a moment’s peace. But it’s crunch time now. Between now and the election, Liberals have to be at the top of their game. We cannot stoop to these kinds of inelegant attacks, because all we have going for us right now is that truth is on our side. If we start bending that, we’ll muddy the waters so much that the photo-finish horse race everyone is predicting will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Courage, Democrats.

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Wednesday, August 4th, 2004 @ 7:48 pm Blogging Matters, Politics Matters, Truth Matters
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