Bloggers of all stripes and perspectives would do well to read David Brooks’ Op-Ed in the New York Times. Far too many have strayed into the territory Brooks is describing:
The quintessential new warrior scans the Web for confirmation of the president’s villainy. He avoids facts that might complicate his hatred. He doesn’t weigh the sins of his friends against the sins of his enemies. But about the president he will believe anything. He believes Ted Kennedy when he says the Iraq war was a fraud cooked up in Texas to benefit the Republicans politically. It feels so delicious to believe it, and even if somewhere in his mind he knows it doesn’t quite square with the evidence, it’s important to believe it because the other side is vicious, so he must be too.
Without trying to sound condescending, this is what has soured me on the blogosphere of late. So much is gotcha journalism. Not in the “Politics of Personal Destruction” type sense but in the “I am smarter than you sense.” Everybody is accusing everybody of deception and ignorance without any sense of irony or humility. It is the blind leading the naked (name the group that produced that album and I will buy you a free book).
Brooks warns against losing intellectual seriousness by being swept up in the battle:
To the warrior, politics is no longer a clash of value systems, each of which is in some way valid. It’s not a competition between basically well-intentioned people who see the world differently. It’s not even a conflict of interests. Instead, it’s the Florida post-election fight over and over, a brutal struggle for office in which each side believes the other is behaving despicably. The culture wars produced some intellectually serious books because there were principles involved. The presidency wars produce mostly terrible ones because the hatreds have left the animating ideas far behind and now romp about on their own.
When politics gets ugly and vicious like this, I tend to escape into history and literature and of course sports. This is a partial explanantion for my off and on blogging of late. Part of this may be my melancholy nature, but I think Brooks words are worth heading. We could all do with a little self-awareness these days.
I agree completely. Politics interests me on a cerebral level, but in the last fifteen years it appears to have disintegrated to little more than a power struggle, an exchange of emotional, personal attacks. It really leaves me cold.
I tracked-back to this post and put some of my own thoughts on my blog. Thanks, Kevin.
Nicely said, Kevin. I doubt the Plame affair extends to the president, thought Kennedy’s comments unwise and still cannot understand why no Democratic candidate will openly agree with the President’s policy in Iraq………
And I’m not a fan of Bush, either. I agree, It’s all just partisan argument.
Yeah, almostly agree. Politics is dirty and disgusting thing. I don’t want be even concerned to it. Brrrr
Well, I received some of Kevin’s mudslinging in my email inbox from someone who thought he had something worthwhile to say. Personally, I think he’s too young to know what he’s talking about. Take a look around; Brown and Root did the same thing in Viet Nam that they’re doing now. The oil shortage of the 70′s netted some $93 billion bucks for the same guys it’s making money for this time. I think you had better wake up and smell the coffee, and quit complaining about the negativity of it all; that’s a negative stand to take. Get positive, informed, and interested and you’ll be interesting to an old gal like me.