If They Were All I Knew Of Liberals, I’d Hate Them Too
by digby
In case you ever wondered why everyone hates liberals so much, this would be it:
Dana Milbank, who has been writing the “Washington Sketch” feature for nearly six years, is moving to the editorial page, where he will be free to opine at will. But Milbank says his writing will still be rooted in reporting and observation.
“Anybody reading my column would make an informed judgment that I’m left-of-center, and I wouldn’t quarrel with that,” he says. “But strongly ideological people on the left do not recognize me as one of their own.”
Well thank God for that. Otherwise he’d be unemployable.
The fact is that we don’t recognize him because he’s not center, left or left of center — he’s just a snotty, condescending Villager who sees himself as above this silly political fray. Unfortunately, the Washington Post is selling him as a liberal, just as they sell Richard Cohen as a liberal and just as Fox sells Pat Caddel as a liberal and the NY Times sells Maureen Dowd as a liberal. In other words, they balance out their doctrinaire conservatives like Krauthammer and Kristol with Villager assholes who nobody outside the beltway can stand. Hence, nobody likes liberals.
It’s one of the most frustrating aspects of the Villager mentality. Liberals are misrepresented terribly in the media and it’s glacially slow in changing. I’m hopeful that it is happening, but the social and professional structure of organizations are very difficult to change without a consciousness of the problems. And I don’t see much media consciousness of this problem. And to the extent they understand it, they are misapplying the lessons.
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