If one had to read one columnist to appreciate the state of contemporary left-wing commentary, my nomination would be Frank Rich of the Sunday New York Times.

No well-known leftist columnist better exemplifies the worst aspects of today’s left. Virtually every piece is filled with anger, filled with ad hominem responses to arguments, filled with insults of opponents and at the same time devoid of intellectual arguments. A Frank Rich column is essentially a weekly tantrum meant to make his readers nod in agreement and reinforce their contempt for those who differ with them.

I offer this past Sunday’s column as an example.

The subject was the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays in the military.

Not a single serious argument of proponents of DADT was cited, nor did Rich did offer a single argument on behalf of repealing it. Instead, the article was a smear of all supporters of that policy or of retaining the male-female definition of marriage. The article contains 71 sentences. Twelve sentences contained an insult. I suspect that Times readers who love his columns — this was listed as the second most e-mailed piece in the New York Times — are generally people who read Frank Rich so as to have their hatreds reinforced, not for cogent arguments.

The article’s title is, appropriately, an insult: “Smoke the Bigots Out of the Closet.”

It is commonplace for liberals and leftists to avoid refuting conservative arguments and just dismiss the conservative with one of seven epithets: “Racist,” “Bigoted,” “Sexist,” “Intolerant,” and the three phobias: “Homophobic,” Xenophobic,” “Islamaphobic.”

Such ad hominem dismissals of conservatives and their arguments testify to the shallowness of those using these terms, meaning, unfortunately, most mainstream commentators and spokesmen on the left. The fact is that epithets substitute for thought — and at the same time render it easy to write a left-wing column. It is the Frank Rich Formula: make believe the other side has no thoughtful argument, offer no argument of your own and debase your opponents.

Some examples from just this one column:

RICH: “… there is now little political advantage to spewing homophobia.”

RICH: (CNN allowed conservative spokesmen to express) “old homophobic cliches.”

RICH: “Such arguments … are mere fig leaves to disguise the phobia that can no longer dare speak its name. … (T)he flimsy rhetorical camouflage must be stripped away to expose the prejudice that lies beneath.”

RICH: “Those opposing same-sex marriage are just as eager to mask their bigotry.”

RICH: “The more bigotry pushed out of the closet for all voters to see …”

RICH: “… the deep prejudice at the root of their (Republicans’) arguments.”

Here are the usual charges of “homophobia,” “prejudice,” and “bigotry.”

But also note “spewing” because Rich almost never describes conservatives as speaking normally: In this column alone, they “spew,” Sen. Orrin Hatch “vamped” and John McCain “huffed,” “fulminated” and was “yapping.” No conservative “says,” or “claims” or “argues.” Conservatives spew, vamp, huff, fulminate and yap. Do Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Thomas Sowell or any other conservative commentators meant to be taken as seriously as the left takes Rich use such verbs to describe the speech of prominent liberals? I doubt it. The gulf in depth of thought and sophistication of expression between Frank Rich and virtually every mainstream conservative columnist is enormous.

(I did a 30-day search of the words “spew” and “spewed” on the Washington Post and New York Times websites, and every single time they were used, it was by a liberal writer talking about conservatives.)

RICH: (Conservatives who oppose repeal of DODT are) “attack dogs.”

RICH: (McCain is) “the crazy man in Washington ‘s attic.”

Rich also called McCain “unpatriotic” in his previous column — a particularly ugly charge given McCain’s heroic sacrifices for America .

RICH: “Karl Rove and George W. Bush ran a national campaign (in 2004) exploiting fear of gay people …”

Rich provided no example. For good reason. Bush did not run “a national campaign exploiting fear of gay people” in 2004 (or any other year). What Bush called for in 2004 was a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. In fact, Bush took his own party to task for not supporting civil unions for same-sex couples. It is mendacity — indeed it is a smear — to label what Bush advocated “a national campaign exploiting fear of gay people.” But to Rich and his supporters anyone — anyone — who thinks marriage should be defined as the union of a man and a woman is a fear-mongering bigot.

RICH: “Now that explicit anti-gay animus is an albatross, those who oppose gay civil rights are driven to invent ever loopier rationales for denying those rights, whether in the military or in marriage.”

RICH: “The arguments for preserving ‘don’t ask’ have long been blatantly groundless.”

Where is this mainstream conservative “explicit anti-gay animus?” And why are the arguments that gays in a military unit may fall in love with one another (or with a straight person) or that for the same reason — sexual tension — that we do not have men and women in the same units, showering and sleeping together, we might not deem it a good idea to have sexual tension in an all-men’s unit — why are these arguments “loopy” and “groundless”? This conservative columnist and talk show host does not find liberal arguments for admitting open gays into the military either loopy or groundless. But contrary to the left’s self-image, conservatives are far more likely to acknowledge two sides to this and so many other issues.

The truth is that it is Frank Rich who spews, fulminates, yaps and huffs. Every Sunday in the New York Times. His column is idea-free, but his readers want catharsis, not ideas.

Reading Liz Blaine’s great piece yesterday on the “Rock the Vote, Hold out for Health Care” video, prompted me to remember what I had thought when I first saw the video. Since I will never allow an opportunity pass to point out the hypocrisy and idiocy of some of those on the Left, particularly “celebrities”, I thought I’d share those thoughts:

So, I watched the following PSA from “Rock the Vote”and, after I finished hurling, it got me to thinking (which is always dangerous, but I can’t stop myself. Believe me, I’ve tried). Remember when things like Hanoi Jane Fonda were a one-off? It was a huge deal that was discussed for, literally, decades.

Other celebrities would get drunk or stoned and make a fool of themselves on occasion, causing mass snickering and fervor due, in part, to the novelty of it. Now, it is a daily event! It’s changes like this that make me feel old and reminiscent for times past. (I’m pretty sure it all started with the demotion of Pluto. I started imagining the tossing about of insults like “You are so old that in your day Pluto was a planet.” Oh, how I long for days of planetary Pluto!)

Is this what we are going to have to deal with forever now? The dumbassery of celebutards shoved in our faces incessantly? It’s like hell on earth, which, coincidentally, I now picture as being stuck on a bio-diesel bus in perpetuity with Will Ferrell, Sheryl Crow, Al Gore and one roll of toilet paper among us (toilet paper is evil, you know.)

The latest “dumbass celebrities of the year” installment is brought to us by Rock the Vote, a member of Campaign for America’s Future’s coalition. Rock The Vote, by the way, claims to be non-partisan. This statement is on their website:

Rock the Vote is a nonpartisan organization. This means that we do not support or endorse candidates nor do we participate in any activities that could benefit one party over another. There are many laws governing our work as a nonpartisan organization and we take our non partisanship seriously. We cannot approve use of our logo for any partisan effort.

Huh. That’s funny. Because the PSA is urging people to support the dreadful Health Care Reform bill, pushed for by President Obama and the Democrats. They must be using the Newspeak definition of non-partisan. By non-partisan, they mean totally couldn’t get more partisan. Watch below:

If you can get past the utter stupidity of urging youth to support a bill that actually punishes the young (they will be forced to buy policies they do not need and will pay much higher premiums than the elderly), it gets even ickier. They ask young people to pledge “mind, body and soul”  (no, really) to a piece of legislation and, by extension, the President and a party. Sound familiar?

Worse, the way they are trying to encourage young people is by using their bodies as sexual weapons.  Where are the feminists decrying this objectification of our young women? Rock the Vote is basically saying: “Oh noes! Don’t support the socialization of medicine? We totally won’t bang you.” Say, if they are really concerned with health, shouldn’t they be discouraging boffing strangers? Although, I suppose it makes sense to them; the left really only knows how to screw America.

They are pulling the skanky version of their usual stompy foot baby behavior. Only, instead of throwing a tantrum and holding their breath, they are “holding out.” The sad part is that they think this is a threat. I think it’s a bonus! No chance of lefty procreation, since a vast majority of Americans do, in fact, oppose this legislation. Whew!

(Note: six weeks later and nary a word from NOW or any other feminist groups. I suppose they are too busy, what with all their faux-causes and all)

—–

Follow Lori  on Twitter and read more of her work at Snark and Boobs, iOwntheWorld and Right Wing News.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It has always been a source of amusement to us that many leftists love to quote Orwell and use “Orwellian” as one of their favorite anti-conservative insults. Yet day by day they perform activities that seem ripped straight from the pages of Orwell’s works. Take, for example, Monday’s Rachel Maddow show, which does an admirable job of shoving the recent history of the filibuster down the memory hole to make way for a leftist re-write.

In an interview with the Washington Monthly’s Steven Benen, Maddow and her guest cheerfully trashed the filibuster as “the abuse of the power of one senator to bring the nation to its knees.” This is not just wrong, it’s spectacularly wrong. No one Senator can sustain a filibuster–after all, it only takes the votes of 60 to override a filibuster. This filibuster is a tactic that only a unified minority can employ. It’s amusing that after so many shows deriding Republicans for being fractured and splintered, she’s now afraid of a tactic that not only requires them to be unified, but to pick up support from at least one other Senator (in this case, most likely Joseph Lieberman).

But that’s merely hypocrisy, not abuse of history. That came later, when Benen had this to say:

“Senators would occasionally filibuster in extreme circumstance.  But as of, say, the last Congress, the number just exploded.  We broke a record. The number of filibusters are coming in at unprecedented pace.  They broke the record in the last Congress.  They‘re on track to break their own record, and referring to the Republican minority, break their own record again in this Congress. And I think that one of the problems that we have is the political establishment thinks that this is normal, that the Senate just operates this way.  It doesn‘t.”

Really? The Senate doesn’t operate this way? We think that would be news to the unending string of George W. Bush’s judicial appointees who were routinely filibustered by the Democratic minority.

Benen went on to further change history in stating that:

“the reasons that Republicans feel justified in being able to have these constant filibusters on literally everything, is that they feel there are no electoral consequences for their obstructionism.”

Leaving aside Benen’s abuse of the word “literally,” perhaps the reason that conservatives feel justified in using the filibuster now is that they’ve had it wielded against them for the past eight years. Eight years in which the left cried long and hard about how the filibuster was a valuable tool of democracy, and went into an absolutely apoplectic fit when some Senate Republicans brought up the possibility of doing away with it.

This is a fairly standard leftist trope after all–when out of power, demand that your opponents play by the rules. When in power, break the rules as often as possible, threaten to change the rules when you can’t break them, and cry “we won” as justification. But there is a very good reason that this country is not a straight Democracy–tyranny of the majority is a very real threat, and the left would do well to remember that changing the rules to further strengthen the majority only work as long as you hold on to power. And this country is not keen on keeping one party in control for too long. That is why conservatives should be–in our opinion–against any attempt to eliminate the filibuster. Yes, it will occasionally be use to oppose causes we believe in, but there is a reason it exists. And there is a reason it is difficult to change the rules of the United States’ government–it should be.

“A Spoonful of Saccharine”

by Tim and Alissa Birkel

Related posts:

1. A Spoonful of Saccharine: Rachel Maddow Fails to Understand a Little Thing Called Context
2. A Spoonful of Saccharine: Maddow accuses Senator DeMint of “Treason”
3. A Spoonful of Saccharine: Maddow's Continued Blindness to Irony, Hamsher's Continued Inability to Let the Past Go

Iranian laws about the Web are purposely kept vague. Ahmed Batebi, the dissident who recently escaped Tehran after eight years in prison, told me that “The regime can arrest people and bloggers for any reason precisely because the laws are not clear.”

A journalist in the city of Yazd recently reported several cases of bloggers being shut down or involved in lawsuits due to readers’ comments. And on Nov. 14, local Iranian press reported that a new police unit was formed to fight “insults and the spreading of lies” on the Internet—another phrase which effectively bans any criticism of the regime.

It’s hard to believe in light of this Internet repression, but Iran’s president is himself a blogger. “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Personal Memos” is the place where he goes to vent and stay in touch with the common folk. He says he allots himself 15 minutes a week to write on his blog, but admits that at times he exceeds this limit.

via David Keyes: Ahmadinejad, the Blogger – WSJ.com.