I guess there’s a chance all candidates will live up to this. However, I’m not so sure that all candidates would critizise their own followers when they smear opponents. Bush’s reaction on the swiftboating of Kerry left a lot to be desired.

So far all the Presidential candidates are avoiding this trap.
I hope they can keep it up and compete on the quality of their ideas and ability to persuade.

Gerstein is totally wrong. Using ‘his’ strategy would result in the same desaster as 2004. Don’t let moronic consultants ruin this campaign again! The vote 2008 is too important to leave it to elitist beltway pundits!

MF – You didn’t deabte the issues of CL, just a ‘cut and paste’ excersize isn’t debate. The another Lefty is a LGF tactic. As they say at BJ, “I like pie”.

The vile attacks on her – threats of rape and murder – prove her point.

Her anger is justifiable.

The frenzies whipped up by the Right – to sell a war, to slander and smear political opposition, to peddle insane religious beliefs as the only legitimate ones – is NOT justifiable

Here we go again ! Another lefty claims it’s ok for me but no for thee .

Further, those tactics worked a treat over the last 6 years to intimidate opposition, frame issues and define candidates, short-circuit debate and escape oversight… all to the benefit of George Bush and the GOP.

The people now complaining about polarization and inflammatory rhetoric are, oddly enough, the same people who engaged in little else while they were riding high.

I agree that it’s no way to run a functioning democracy. But American democracy is not functioning. The ‘public interest’ is a concept that Bush, the GOP, and their supporters in RW blogs mocked and undermined for, lo, these many years. Americans are tired of polarization and inflammatory rhetoric that is a ruse, that is a distraction, that is a lie; that undermines our nation and its citizenry.

Here’s what people who criticize Marcotte can’t seem to comprehend: the issues she cares deeply about – women’s issues, poverty issues – have been under constant assault for the last 6 years. She is angry because violent and vicious bigotry, misogyny, racism, bigotry, and religious-based hatred and ignorance have become not only acceptable points of view again, but also become acceptable bases for personal behavior and public policy. The vile attacks on her – threats of rape and murder – prove her point.

Her anger is justifiable.

The frenzies whipped up by the Right – to sell a war, to slander and smear political opposition, to peddle insane religious beliefs as the only legitimate ones – is NOT justifiable.

I do, however, find something more subtle. To whit: I like my audience (small as it is). If I put something up, and I get a lot of good feedback or discussion, I tend to do it again. Now, hold that thought as I move on to another for a moment. I tend to post in someone else’s blog when something really strikes my fancy, or hits a nerve. I don’t like to do ‘nod’ posts, so there’s a natural distribution toward posts where either I have strong feelings on some grounds, or where I think there’s a really cool point to be made/idea to bounced.

Combining those two ideas, I think it’s natural to see people getting extreme posts pushing them in a direction(One sees it here even. moderate extremeism. Who’d a thunk it). I think, given the first point of human nature, a blogger has a desire to feed that, and thereby ends up being more extreme than they may have intended. The end result is what we have.

Of course, she doesn’t deserve death threats in response, and I condemn anyone who made any death threats against her, but her hostility to mainstream Christians, and frankly to men, render her utterly unsuitable for a position of responsibility in a presidential campaign. She should never have been hired by Senator Edwards to begin with.

I hope TMV upholds a high standard of civility.