As well as stupid.

. . . the smart stuff is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere. Anyone who doesn't move in lockstep with the most extreme voices is savaged and ridiculed—especially people like me who often agree with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore considered traitorously unreliable. Some of this is understandable: the left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

It's interesting to see left-wingers, at long last, examining themselves a bit. But this graf is nonsense. The left didn't become witless and intolerant in response to talk radio, they have always been this way. Both sides have always been as they are, but we now have better communication. Advances in information and communication technologies have just exposed them.

In the long term. . . kowtowing to extremists is exactly the opposite of what this country is looking for after the lethal radicalism of the Bush Administration.

And so the author, Joe Klein, tries to immunize himself by kowtowing to extremists, perpetuating that which he faintly damns, demonstrating the vulgarity of politics and the insincerity of this self-examination.

We need far less government and politics. As long as the dung heap is this large we will draw legions of flies, and worse.