jg, your last post is just more of the same. Your “sense of parody” is right along the lines of Rovian debate philosophy. Which is to say, not very well reasoned, not really making any logical points, not doing anything other than attempting to make others look silly and (if observers are intelligent and rational) only making yourself look silly in the process. Unfortunately, too many people in this country have been trained to act in an unintelligent and irrational fashion since Karl Rove masterminded the divide-and-conquer strategy that the Republicans have used over the last decade.

Sure, partisanship has been around for centuries. Millenia, really. Sure, Brooks beat Sumner over the head with a stick. The idea is to progress beyond that sort of simple, irrational, foolish behavior. The idea is to conduct ourselves in the civilized manner and discuss ideas in a way that is conducive to hearing each others’ ideas and (in the case of politicians) making policy (based on those civilized discussions) that is best for our country. The idea that you can say, “You have your knickers in a wad over imagined slights from Rove? Toughen up, ladies” and be thought of as anything other than distracing from reasonable discourse should be an idea that fell out of favor hundreds of years ago. And maybe that idea was fading out of favor as the last century ended. But it’s back with a vengeance. It’s become part of our culture. I say it’s time to change that.