Liberals and progressives "untroubled by debate and dissent"?

i never cease to marvel how dramatically some folks who, by virtue of their positions (in this case at a think tank, stanford's hoover institution), i thought would have their fingers much more on the pulse of the nation, don't... this hoover guy, peter berkowitz, writing in the wall street journal, seems particularly clueless...

The Conservative Mind
The American right is a cauldron of debate; the left isn't.

[...]

On a variety of issues that currently divide the nation, those to the left of center seem to be converging, their ranks increasingly untroubled by debate or dissent, except on daily tactics and long-term strategy. Meanwhile, those to the right of center are engaged in an intense intra-party struggle to balance competing principles and goods.

i don't know what he's smoking, but to say that the left isn't a cauldron of debate is flat-out wrong... the past few weeks, especially after the horror of the betrayal by the democratic leadership on the iraq war funding bill, have tossed liberals and progressives into an all-out civil war with their elected democratic leadership, and i can't see how he can write as if he's blissfully unaware of that... just listen to him blather on...

Democrats today are nearly united in the belief that the invasion has been a fiasco and that we must withdraw promptly. Indeed, rare is the Democrat (Sen. Joe Lieberman was compelled to run as an Independent) who does not sound like a traditional realist denying both America's moral obligation to remain in Iraq and its capacity to bring order to the country.

oh, well... i can only conclude that working in a conservative think tank and associating with only like-minded colleagues leaves you unprepared to confront the messy world of reality...

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