Stones and Glass Houses

I was watching a panel discussion on C-Span yesterday, entitled “How the Right Can Win Online.” It was being held at a convention of the right wing blogosphere in Pittsburgh and it was an interesting discussion held by levelheaded and sober people whose principles, for the most part, I do not agree with. What was most interesting to me was the total lack of understanding that this group held about their “opposition,” namely the left wing blogosphere.

One of the things that was said, for instance, and was generally agreed,

“The Left has a top down model where talking points and ideas are promoted by the George Soros crowd and then repeated by the echo chamber, while the Right is more grass roots oriented and less likely to accept marching orders.”

What’s interesting is that the Left says precisely the same thing about the Right, naming Rush Limbaugh as the arbiter of talking points and marching orders. I suspect that the both assessments are oversimplifications with elements of both error and accuracy in them. Both groups call the other group “stupid” and refer to their arguments as “idiotic,” like two groups of college students flinging rocks at each other’s glass houses.

The opponent for whom you have contempt beats you because you didn’t bother to study him; you didn’t know his weapons or his tactics, and he came at you from an unexpected direction.

In this case the left will be defeated from an unexpected direction, all right; from the direction that they have been treating with contumely and derision.