Ouch

Writers like Rod Dreher and Daniel Larison tend to be ...

On the other hand, Daniel, it was David Brooks doing the lumping together.

(If you don't already know those two names, this'll illustrate it as quickly as anything: Larison | Dreher.)

A Golf Clap for James Poulos

James Poulos has in the past been, in my mind, one of those all-too-uncommon righties who is actually worth hearing out. You know the kind, or at least rue the rarity -- don't always agree with him, says some truly whacked-out things, but still, not always just regurgitating Rush, Beck, and Newt. I used to check in on the original(?) Postmodern Conservative blog pretty regularly, and I'd also try to remember to look for his posts over at The American Scene.

And then he moved PoMoCo over to First Things, and howl how you will about GUILT BY ASSOCIATION!!!1!, I could not often bring myself to consider worthy any longer someone who would willingly associate himself with the likes of The Anchoress and Hateway Pundit. There is a shortage of time and energy in all of our minds, and we must therefore apply filters, crude though they may sometimes be.

However! Roy informs us "that nice young man" has moved on -- looks like! hurrah! -- and is now, it appears, "an Editor and contributor at Ricochet." (Maybe we will henceforth refer to "James Poulos, Ed." as Jim Ed Poulos, because we like obscure baseball references.)

So! Maybe those thought-waves I've been beaming at him ever since he descended into being a part of what someone, I can't remember who, called "that fascist Catholic outfit" have transmogrified him just a bit. Let us pray.

Line of the Day: 2010-07-21

If a democracy cannot make up its mind precisely why it needs to start a war, it is surely better not to start one in the first place.

The above is from a review by Ian Buruma of Christopher's latest book, Hitch-22, and if it's not already obvious, it refers to the sell-job of the invasion of Iraq by the United States.

People who do not like Hitchens for whatever reason will be delighted with this review. But if you are like me -- someone who admires Hitch for at least some things -- I'd encourage you to read it despite its generally harsh tone. The thing about Hitch for me is that I was delighted to hear him articulate so well our shared feelings about religion, and when I learned of some of his views on other topics -- disagreeable being a multipurpose word here -- I think I might have valued Hitch more. It is a good thing to have your own views challenged from time to time by someone who is skilled at making arguments, especially if you already respect that person. I wouldn't at all say that Hitch has persuaded me on the doubleplusgoodness of George and Dick's Excellent Adventure, but I feel better for having had to go through some of his challenges to my initial instinctive reactions.

(h/t: TC, via email)

__________

More Hitch-related stuff:

• As you may already know, Hitch is currently undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer. As you will be unsurprised to hear, this has meant no small amount of yammering on the topic of praying for him. Ross Douthat has a nice post on this.

• I came across this thing from about six weeks ago: David Frum has posted a podcast of an interview he did of Hitch that took place when Hitch was still out doing promo for his book, and before he had received (or shared) the news about his illness. It's about twenty minutes long. Pretty interesting, though perhaps for fans only. (Don't let a distaste for Frum put you off, if you suffer from such an affliction -- he's just being a straight-up interviewer here; it's not a neocon wankfest.)

Republican Senator Explains Why Parting Your Hair Down The Middle Should Cease Before You're Middle-Aged

Coburn: A divider, not a uniter.
And that's from his official portrait, y'all.

Oh, no, wait. We started this post to pass along the news from TPM that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) went to a "townhall meeting" and told those in attendance that they shouldn't believe everything they hear on Fox News, that they should listen to other news sources, and that Nancy Pelosi is actually a nice person.

!!!

Y'know, when you've got a guy who's on the record as saying he believes doctors who perform abortions should be executed and he's telling you to lighten up … just sayin', teabaggers. Just sayin'.

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[Added] As your Wonkette might say, the wingnuts are already cold going nuts on the Twitter; e.g.:

Conservative Talk Show Host Rips Republicans, and Other Laughs

A fun read: John Batchelor's "Attack of the Zombie Republicans." Among other things, he calls Limbaugh and his suck-ups "a cult that is daily fed the same gossip by the same handful of surprisingly Drudge-dependent sources, a cult that claims to be Republican but could just as easily be Wahhabist for all its make-believe masculine grievances …"

Hat tip to Paul Slansky and his News Index (via Ken Layne), where many other snickers are to be had, including this characterization of Sarah Palin's latest tone-deaf attempt to grab some spotlight: "a national punch line is complaining about a joke."

More on the DHS Report, And This Time With Spine

(In contrast to the last, I mean.)

A few hours ago, Twin and I were talking about the hysteria on display by Malkin and her ilk over the recently released DHS Report ("Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment" [PDF]). I finished up by saying:

I'm waiting for the next reasonable conservative to tell them to take a deep breath, or call them on their hypocrisy, whereupon they'll tear him to shreds. Or, I suppose, it could all just go away because of the big teabagging news of tomorrow.

Looks like I should have stuck with my first guess. John Cole:

First They Came For…

Charles Johnson. Then they went after AJ Strata.

CJ (proprietor of Little Green Footballs) has long since been booted from the wingnut ranks for insufficient purity. (Even I could see that, remember?) I've noticed a couple of flickers of sanity from AJ (proprietor of Strata-Sphere) in the past, but I don't pay enough attention to him, I guess. CJ's post is sensible, as is AJ's first (the "AJ" link). His second (the "Strata" link) is cackle-icious, to a libtard like me. But after a few moments of glee, it's also something that demands respect. All three posts bear reading, and these two guys deserve props for saying to the hard core of their side: I've had enough of you people.

I sent a follow-up email to Twin with the above links, and finished:

Divide and conquer. That's how we're winning. Keep pushing the crazies to show their craziness, and anyone worthwhile will sooner or later be separated out, either by them, or by him- or herself.

P.S. BTW, CJ's post, as of this moment, has over 1400 comments. I skimmed [them] for a little while -- seems like a lot of people are where CJ and AJ are at: fed up with the crazies. They're piling on Malkin, and they're piling on some guy with the handle Bumr50, for his comment (#765) about wanting to shoot illegal immigrants.

Know hope.

[Added] If you'd rather not yet be nothing but charitable, even as you know that CJ and AJ deserve it and that you'll be welcoming them back into the reality-based community fairly soon, there's always Glennzilla for some righteous finger-wagging. We all said the same things to the right-wing back when they were cheering on Bush & Co.'s crumpling up of the Constitution, and Glenn says I told you so, I told you so, I told you so well enough for all of us.

Secular Right

Via Andrew Sullivan, I just came across a group blog called Secular Right. It appears to have launched less than a week ago. From my initial visit, I'd say this is a good one to watch, if for no other reason than the feeling of relief provoked by seeing hardcore conservatives making every effort to separate themselves from the fundies. Also, this seems like a good place to go to check the pulse of the thoughtful Right, a much more substantive alternative to what passes for thinking from the likes of Bill Kristol, Rush Limbaugh, Jonah Goldberg, Bill O'Reilly, and most of the cretins on The Corner.

Several of the recent posts feature some of the site's bloggers outing themselves; i.e., after having begun blogging under pseudonyms, they have revealed their meatspace identities. I don't know why, but there it is. In any case, we can now say that among the group are Walter Olson, Razib Khan (aka David Hume), and John Derbyshire (aka Bradlaugh).

Derb also outed himself in a different venue, by announcing the launch of Secular Right on The Corner. Derb posted, on Secular Right, some of the reactions to this announcement. I liked this exchange:

Reader C:

Dear John — Is your blog limited to atheists and agnostics or will it take in believers who think God is more worried about the next world than how government should work in this one?

[Me]  That’s nicely said. As usual with enterprises of this sort, we haven’t really worked out the limits yet. We are definitely hospitable to apatheists (i.e. no opinion about God & couldn’t care less) as well as agnostics (not sure) and atheists (sure not).

Here's a good post to get you started: Derb dissing Dinesh D'Souza, an endeavor I'd like to see happening far more often.

Here's a link from the blog's second post: a letter to David Frum, penned by James Charles Wilson, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Denver. Well worth reading.

These cherry-picked recommendations notwithstanding, I don't expect that I'll always agree with these guys. In fact, I expect not to agree with them much of the time. And that's a good thing.

I'll be adding Secular Right to my blogroll momentarily (hope their servers are up for it!). And while I'm at it, I'll be adding Daniel Larison's Eunomia and Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish. (oops -- already there, under T -ed.) I hope Jon Swift won't be too upset that he's no longer the sole reasonable conservative listed.