> DLS – Rush Limpbaugh won’t give up his day job,
> can’t give up those trips to Carribean Thai pleasure
> retreats.

I’m no talk show host but I’m willing to substitute for him there.

[imitation of Al Franken imitating Rush Limbaugh]

“Thisssssss issssss annnnnnnn unnnnnnnnnnimaginnnnnnnnnnabllllle tragedyyyyyyyyyy, myyy friendsssssssss…”

I have to second Kritter here…kudos to Joe, and MVG, and Shaun and the rest of the TMV crew.

There are too many “echo chambers” right and left in the blogosphere…where different voices and ideas are shouted down, and lumped in with “trolls”.

I was surprised, when I first came across Joe “Moderate Voice” last year, as it was like an oasis amid the “Oooh-Oooh-Oooh” chanting hordes of the blogosphere.

Folks here disagree and argue all the time, and consider each other raving loons I am sure (I can almost hear Kritter’s exasperated sigh in some of her replies to my comments …but there is almost invariably respect and tolerance.

I think such spaces are valuable if the body politic is ever to heal of its self-inflicted wounds of the Bush-Clinton era.

So yea, I do hate him and I’m not going to sugarcoat it.

“The mili-second after each of us leaves this earthly scene, we’ll no longer be Republicans or Democrats or independents. Just souls.”

Sooner or later, we’ll all be held responsible for what we do or say.

Thanks to you, Joe and the rest of the TMV crew for maintaining a site where a higher standard is encouraged.

There’s also, I think, more to it than just that: to a degree, technology takes away the ‘human’ or ‘personal’ aspect. What happens is that one does not consider one’s opponent to be human.

My 2 cents.

I blame the rise of talk radio , the 24-hour cable chat shows, and the blogosphere. In the dark ages, when we had the big 3 network news anchors, there was much more civility, much less exageration and opinion was labelled as such. Now every little flaw is magnified, and biopsied to generate the maximum political outrage. I’m guessing that the extreme emotions that political activists posess is communicated to their representatives who then feel encouraged to get down and dirty with the other side.

One of the reasons I love TMV (thanks JOE and MvdG) is that there is tolerance here and no obscenities are permitted. I also love the ban on personal attacks- because that’s a rare commodity on the web.

Joe makes a very interesting point, and one that I think is true.

Since I started following US politics in the 80s, things seem to have been growing steadily nastier.

I remember reading Tip O’Neill’s “Man About the House” years ago, and noting how as Speaker O’Neill…while he fought Reagan tooth and nail politically…actually liked Reagan personally.

Today, one sees on blogs — left and right, I hasten to add — people hating and wishing horrible things to happen to people whom they don’t know personally at all, but solely on their politics.

So what happened?
At what point did people decide to make the political personal (to adapt the feminist mantra)?

I wonder if…or how soon…we will be seeing these emotions come out in political violence and assassinations, as in Europe in the 70s?

Honestly although I agree about the comments at Wonkette (and now can add Sam to that group), I didn’t see a whole lot of that when I perused a few other left wing blogs, so fortunately I don’t think that sentiment is too widespread. I think it’s unfortunate though that some people would excuse wishing physical illness, harm or even death on another person for ANY reason, including their politics or position of power. It doesn’t matter if you hate what Bush, Cheney et al have done, it still doesn’t excuse personal hatred.

I disagree. Snow is a despicable person in his own right. His job is to obfuscate, dissemble and mislead the american public for his boss and he does it with gusto. While I am glad many here have taken a gentle tone I won’t be losing one second of sleep over that bastard rotting from cancer. I have no problem hating someone who is actively ruining this country by lying to us all on a daily basis.

And so say we all.

MVG is rightfully disgusted, as am I, but he links to a site that I stopped reading, not because of the posts, but precisely because of comments it attracts.

I checked a number of blogs, and most of them had either nothing (too early) or just a straight news announcement. Blogs like Think Progress had a stream of good wishes for Snow, but among them were some really hate filled comments from R-wingers (were they blaming progressives for the cancer?). On Daily Kos, Miss Blue sends her best wishes.
Here and there were good wishes with a reluctant tone to them.
Some of the comments refererred to nasty comments on Right blogs to do with Edwards(I’m not going to hunt them down.)

Folks, please come out from your corners. Let’s agree that the comments on Wonkette are sick. Let’s agree that Limbaugh is, well, what he is.

But let’s not keep score on each other. No side is pure and no side is the devil.

Rudi, as I noted, the comments at Wonkette were appalling, and pretty uniformly vicious. I did see the post at Crooks and Liars, from someone who had a cancer scare herself, that was positive.

I am not trying to score points here. I think Kritter’s comment was dead-on: “Each side reinforces the other, I’m afraid- but it shows our growing lack of humanity, nonetheless.”

I was just pretty bummed about the comments. I spent much of last year back and forth with my dermatologist, and spent the worst summer of my life waiting for successive tests and treatments that never seemed to work.
It is just depressing, that’s all.

God knows what Snow is going through, as he knows the prognosis as much as anyone.

You have to wonder why people would even be in political life, you know, knowing what one will be subject to.

It is just sad.

On topic: not much of a fan of Snow. Compeltely dislike him. Think he has pretty much sold his credibility for pennies on the dollar, though the public speaking racket may reward him for time served.

That said, you can’t help but feel for a guy staring down death, pain, and disfigurement. I have to hope he gets well, even if when he’s well I don’t much care for him.