The Journolist story offers so much meat to chew on that it's still difficult to determine which cuts are the richest. So far, my personal favorite has to be this one:
"Part of me doesn't like this shit either," agreed Spencer Ackerman, then of the Washington Independent. "But what I like less is being governed by racists and warmongers and criminals."
Ackerman went on:
I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It's not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright's defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger's [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.
Obviously. Being on Ackerman's Christmas card list sounds almost as interesting as being on Mark Dayton's.
Conservative pundits and politicians would be well advised to take a snapshot of this little glimpse into the true thoughts of the left-wing media and keep it in a prominent place on their desk. Then, whenever the temptation arises to play the David Brooks card and reach out to their ideological opponents in the media with moderation and good feeling, they will be reminded of exactly what is really at stake. The same people who decried the "climate of fear" created under the Bush Administration and feign outrage every time Michele Bachmann employs a metaphor like "we need to keep our powder dry" would love nothing more than to smash your head through a window to send a message to your colleagues to shut up or else. Rhetorically speaking of course.
