Posted on 09/25/2006 7:56:10 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
George Will's column has taught me several new rhetorical tricks. The first is how to use verbs to distort and impugn. In a column last week about my book Building Red America, Will wrote (emphases mine): "The GOP," Edsall laments, 'has achieved a gradual erosion of the popular consensus behind the major progressive and social-egalitarian movements of the twentieth century."
This artful sentence labels me as a mindless, knee-jerk liberal. In fact, I argue that the left has not come to terms with the fact of eroding support for the liberal agenda. That may or may not be lamentable, but my book leaves the emoting to others. Will writes:
Edsall complains that conservatives pursue an agenda that does not have the public's "decisive support." Whatever that means, liberals such as Edsall are ineligible to make that complaint. They increasingly have abandoned persuasion and legislation and resorted to litigation and judicial fiats to advance an agenda the public finds unpersuasive.
Again, I don't complain about the fact that the public is closely divided on the conservative agenda and on many key issues; I report that division as fact, something very few people--left, right, or center--disagree with.
(Excerpt) Read more at tnr.com ...
No... you were labeled as such long, long ago when you likely responded to some issue in a mindless knee-jerk liberal fashion.
The guy writes so badly, he should change the spelling of his name to "Edsel".
Leni
From Will's column:
"If Edsall is symptomatic, liberalism is lost in a time warp, thinking in antiquated categories. Edsall approvingly quotes a Democratic activist's opinion that there are twice as many angry conservatives as there are angry liberals: ''Liberals by their very nature don't get as angry as conservatives do.'' Edsall, who evidently has not noticed the vitriol of the liberal blogosphere, is so blinded by his own anger he misperceives Republican realities.
The GOP, he says, courts whites ''whose interests are overwhelmingly focused on tempering, if not altogether rolling back, the civil rights movement.'' Please. Who favors this? "
Edsall's another lefty whiner.
(B)
It may be anecdotal, but my experience is just the opposite.
Ouch !
Yes, liberals in engaging in some serious projection and are in blissful denial.
"Yes, liberals in engaging in some serious projection and are in blissful denial."
Liberals ARE engaging...:)
My impression is that Edsell focuses on minor details (the verbs) because he cannot argue with Will's central points: that leftists are lost in a time warp, angry, and determined to push through their agenda by means of corrupt tyrannical judges, since they cannot win by democratic means. They just don't have the support for their delusional programs.
And I'm sure that if Edsell responded to that evaluation, he would say that he has been examined by a licensed psychotherapist, and can offer expert testimony that he is not delusional.
LOL! I'm wiping away a tear! That is some funny stuff! Hoo Boy!
What world is this guy living in? {/rhetorical question}
This includes physical assualt by men on women on airplanes and assualts on parents holding children.
Source: Columbus Dispatch
Exactly.
(btw - Semper fi)
Liberals don't get angry; they get unhinged.
LOL -- If the proverbial show fits, wear it...
LOL -- If the proverbial shoe fits, wear it...
Just scanning DU belies the author's assertion about angrier conservatives.
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