Lefty Blogs and the Vilification of The New Republic

Jonathan Chait takes a rather light-hearted look at Kos's rabid anti-TNR campaign. Of course it's not just Kos...Atrios likes to take periodic (and laughably inept) shots at them, too. Chait's main serious points are that (a) the leftosphere isn't really that far left, they just seem that way because (b) they are so doctrinaire and rabid.

The rantings of the anti-TNRistas frequently remind me of something I once saw in a publication of the American Atheists society. Now, I'm an atheist myself, but only because that's where the available evidence has led me. I'm willing to drop that position in light of new evidence. Atheists like me were called by the publication in question (and this is a quote) "philosophical atheists--the worst kind." Such is the way of extremists. They don't want to hear the facts, they brook no dissent. In politics, folks like that are usually found on the extreme ends of the spectrum. A big chunk of lefty bloggers (and let's not even talk about the right here) have the rabidity down alright, but they may not actually be as "progressive" as they think. (Oh, and, um, whatever happened to 'liberal', anyway? I, for one, am still a liberal, though others seem to have fled from the label because conservatives turned it into a curse word.)

TNR has screwed up big time over the last several years, e.g. allowing Sullivan to stay on even after it became clear that he was incapable of thinking objectively about Bill Clinton. Their most harmful mistake was endorsing the invasion of Iraq, though they did so for good (though perhaps not optimal) reasons. Their subscription rate is way down, and now they've got the leftosphere against them. But they're still the most reasonable voice in the leftish popular press, and they will, of course, long outlast Kos and Atrios.