Why We All Went Nuts

From one of Josh Marshall's readers:

When I found [Talking Points Memo] site, you had a similar sort of "New Democrat" approach. You talked a lot about ideas and while you were certainly a Democrat, but not in a partisan or overly ideological way. I think we would agree that ideas matter, both parties overreach, had problems with trial lawyers and unions, etc.

What I first loved about your site is gone, however, but I don't blame you. I blame Bush et al. And that's a shame. I feel like I lost a real part of me is gone, taken by Bush and the greater Republican movement. That all of our efforts must focus on opposing each and every assertion made by this group; detailing, chronicling and exposing every lie, fallacy, and evil act. Clearly, you too realize this is the only reasonable tactic for us to pursue.

The era of ideas, debate, and moderation is gone (for now), not by our choice, but by theirs. That is Lieberman's problem and an ever shrinking number of holdouts. I really am angry about the loss of a worldview and approach that I valued. Your site's transition is one small bit of evidence of that loss.

I sympathize with all of that. I started out a moderate -- by temperament, if not totally by ideology. I liked believing the best about my opponents, approaching the debate as something to be valued and the ideas as good-faith efforts to be considered. But I was wrong again and again, and as my willingness to assume good-faith repeatedly proved an analytical weakness, I eventually abandoned the effort, and my predictions have been the better-informed for it. Now I write articles about how the West Wing weakened Democrats by wrapping them in a warm-but-false world of comity and spend my time looking for the catch in rightwing policies, not the hope. I'd love to see that change -- it's unnatural for me to be so cynical. But, as Josh's reader says, this is their choice, not ours. Because, in the end, this isn't a game, it's not low stakes. However much I might like to wrap myself in lofty values and enlightened opinions, this really isn't about me and my self-regard. Too many pundits (some even named Klein), I think, make that mistake, and the country is the worse off for it.