The New Republic

Perfervid! Sorry, but I instantly associate that word with Peretz now. In fact, I'm thinking we should retire "perfervid" and replace it with a synonym like "peretzid."

- ratnerstar

April 16, 2010 at 11:54am

There's also the small matter of the false comparison. What freaked out Democrats, myself included, was the Bush administration claiming the right to permanently imprison American citizens without charge, in secret no less, as well as the right to intercept all electronic communications without a warrant. Obama has said that citizens should have healthcare, both because it's a financially bad idea for the rest of us to foot the bill for the uninsured and because it's the right thing to do. And this somehow throws conservatives into a panic about the end of the republic.

- janus

April 16, 2010 at 12:14pm

Those on the right often seek to portray at least a moral equivalence between the left-wing nutters and the right-wing ones, if they don't say that the left is worse outright. But there are Birthers in Congress, even as there are no Truthers on the Hill. I love Rich Lowry citing the Tea Partier Naomi Wolf as an example of left-wing paranoia. As I have contended for years and years, conservatives are correct, standards have declined precipitously. You have to look no further than the conservative journals to demonstrate this proposition. Where National Review once had William F. Buckley Jr., James Burnham, Russell Kirk, and Frank Meyer, now they have Rich Lowry, Andrew McCarthy, and Jonah Goldberg. What a tremendous comedown.

- liberal reformer

April 16, 2010 at 12:48pm

YYou can't say that Lowry wears ideological blinders or is "epistemically closed," because he's willing to criticize violence whenever it occurs, even if perpetrated by the right: "Now, literal paranoia is a noxious thing; it gives us the domestic terrorism of the New Left in the 1970s or the militia movement of the 1990s." See? It's right there - he criticizes "domestic terrorists" on the New Left, but he evenhandedly criticizes the "militia movement" too. Of course, it sounds strange to our ears because "terrorist" seems a loaded word for a movement that was responsible for the death of a handful of people (I think you get to a handful if you count the Symbionese Liberation Army as New Left - I know I identified with them) and died out 30 years ago, while "militia movement" seems to gloss right over the murder of 168 people in Oklahoma; firing on Federal officers at Ruby Ridge and Waco; innumerable hate crimes, church and synagogue bombings and arsons; abortion doctor murders; or contemporary plans to kill cops so you can kill more cops when they show up for the funeral. But, we know Lowry couldn't possibly have meant to glide past the acts of violence committed by right-wingers, because we know he deplores violence, whoever the perpetrators are. Even so, despite the fact that Lowry has earned so much good will from me by the scrupulous fairness of his commentary, I'm still a little troubled. I can't help but think that it would have been incredibly easy to acknowledge acts of right-wing violence and decry them as despicable. Who would he offend? Why would he worry about offending them? He could at least pretend to have some of the moral high ground, even if he secretly hopes for more violence, or more accurately, even if he hopes to keep the militia members in the right-wing fold and doesn't want to hurt their feelings. Chait has criticized Wolf in the past, and he may well do so again - and she's never killed anyone. Why can't Lowry at least pretend to be level real criticism at murderers who share some of his views?

- Geoff G

April 16, 2010 at 1:07pm

janus. Obviously Republications would strongly support imprisoning Tea Partyiers or Republicans as treasonists terrorists incognito at Guantanamo or Black Sites in Romania so long as they were given no health care and they lost their Social Security benefits. If warterboarded sufficiently and all their communications examined without warrants, I bet their confessions and emails would fully justify these actions post hoc and save our Republic.

- drofnats1

April 16, 2010 at 1:39pm

Do conservatives ever have a defense that doesn't amount to, "Hey, someone on your side is just as bad"? It's usually a false comparison, as here, but hey, forget it. Granted. There are left-wingers who are as bad. I will stipulate that if a left-winger does something as stupid, crass, inane, etc. as what you do, then I will not hesitate a moment to condemn said left-winger for his/her stupidity, crassness, and inanity, and with equal fervor. Now, can you defend the Tea Party crap or not? I didn't think so.

- jhildner

April 16, 2010 at 3:46pm

Moreover, (mostly young) left-wing nuttiness is treated with (deserving) derision in the MSM; whereas, the (mostly old) tea-cuckoos get the deference: these "voices" are expressing "real anger" that we must "respect is not agree with." Boomers are attracted to their own.

- Tilghman

April 16, 2010 at 5:51pm