Daily Howler - June 5, 2005

WHEN OKRENT DIDN’T GET ONE THING RIGHT! Okrent didn’t get anything right. But so what! Manjoo kiss-kissed him

SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 2005

WHEN LIBERALS ATTACKED: Yesterday, due to scheduling problems, we had to rush or miss posting completely. So let’s toss in a few last points about why “TV liberals” take gas.

In the course of the past week, we received several e-mails espousing something like the following notion: We liberals are just too smart to make effective advocates. In the past few years, this self-flattering notion has been widely advanced to explain liberal failure at doing talk radio. Here was one of our e-mails:

E-MAIL: Why liberals lose the spin wars:

“A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.”
Robert Frost

For an example, take a look at the Clarence Thomas hearings. While the
Republicans on the committee were prosecutors, sending out investigators to dig up things on Anita Hill, then making up things to attack her, the Democrats were bombarded with unsolicited witnesses confirming Thomas' proclivities in college and law school and harassment at the office and the Democrats wouldn't even listen. Liberals want to be seen as open-minded and bend over backwards to appear so. Thus, they overcompensate, while conservatives are advocates who want to win over all else. As a result, and as illustrated by the Thomas hearings, you have a prosecutor and a judge with no defense attorney. With this arrangement, it is amazing that liberals would EVER win...

We don’t buy it.