Payback

The Washington Post had a long story in Saturday's paper (front page) about all those enraged liberals out in cyberspace who are doing completely crazy things -- like blowing up federal buildings with truck bombs and threatening to kill judges.

Well, actually, who aren't doing any those things -- but who are a wild and crazy bunch nevertheless, the Post wants the world to know, completely unstable and liable at any moment to fire off an extremely profane e-mail to a hard-working, God-fearing newspaper editor. Ticking time bombs of vituperation, in other words.

I haven't read the whole dreary thing, but the chosen examples I did see were pretty telling: Maryscott O'Connor of My Left Wing and the Rude Pundit.

The Rude Pundit is, of course, the rude pundit -- but the Tourette act is really just an inspired running gag, like Jesus's General. I don't think the rude pundit really talks that way in normal life, just like I don't think patriotboy really is overcome by strange and inexplicable feelings of longing whenever he is in the presence of oiled-down Greco-Roman wrestlers. Although you never know. In any case, the blogosphere universally understands that the Rude Pundit is a schtick, but most Post readers don't know, and the Post knows they don't.

Exhibit A, however, in the Case of the Crazed Left Wing Bloggers is Maryscott. I don't know as much about her, although from what I hear she appears to be nicely carving out a niche for herself as the left's answer to Howard Beale (aka the Mad Prophet of the Air Waves) -- a role the producers at the UBS network (i.e. Fox News) appear only too happy to let her play. The Post has an appropriately unflattering picture of Maryscott in her bathrobe and keyboard ensemble, with a suitably anguished expression on her face.

In other words, all the elements of a classic journalistic hit job are present and reporting for duty. Mission accomplished, sir.

I could complain about the sleaziness of it all -- zeroing in on a few of the more, ah, colorful, inhabitants of Left Blogistan while ignoring the ranting fury currently on the display on the other side of the cyber-DMZ (see previous post.) And I could suggest that focusing on the alleged unsoundness of mind of a small group of lefty bloggers at a time when the President of the United States (the only one we've got) is seriously considering a nuclear first strike against Iran shows a certain lack of balance. But what's the point? The nasty deed is done.

At first I thought this was just the SCLM being the SCLM -- and Karl Rove thanks you for your support. But on reflection I realized that the genesis of this particularly smear job isn't politics, it's payback. The Post is getting even with Left Blogistan for the take down of Baby Ben, for the impudent e-mails about the omsbudswoman from hell, for the passionate defense of Dan Froomkin, for the outrage over the Post's editorial defense of the sliming of Joe Wilson, etc. etc.

Especially that first insult -- the near instant demolition of washingtonpost.com's plagiarist/blogger. As the omsbudswoman from hell put it, that one was "a f---ing disaster." And I'm sure she meant every one of those hyphens.

In other words, the liberal bloggers who dragged the Google swamp for the evidence of Baby Ben's journalistic offenses not only cost washingtonpost.com a few brownie points with the White House, they humiliated the editors in front of all their friends. And by God, they're going to pay, dammit! Do you hear me? Pay!

I mean, isn't that how high-school nerds usually get even -- by spreading vicious rumors about the popular kids? Some things never really change.

I don't know what lesson to draw from all this, other than the fact that the great and mighty Washington Post is apparently scared of its shadow. It's not that the kind of left-wing anger the Post describes isn't out there in -- it's certainly inside me -- but what the Post reporter doesn't seem to recognize (he wasn't supposed to) is the difference between the anger of those who have absolutely no power, who have only their words as weapons, and the anger of those who wield considerable influence over the party in complete control of the most powerful government in the world.

In the Post article, Maryscott says at least one thing that is both true and wise, which is that her rage and her blogging are both "born of powerlessness." The problem is that Lord Acton's maxim is equally true in reverse: If power corrupts, so does powerlessness. It can lead to fatalism, apathy and irresponsibility -- or to paranoia, rage and a willingness to believe evey loopy conspiracy theory that comes down the pike.

The difference, I think, between left and right is that the right has no rational justification to feel any of these things, and yet many, if not most, conservatives continue to wallow in the mindset of a besieged minority.

Liberals, much less radical progressives, really are a besieged minority in this country. So why is it suddenly considered front-page news that they're acting like one?

The answer, of course, is that if the Maryscotts of Left Blogistan are evidence of the corruption of powerlessness, the Washington Post is proof positive of Lord Acton's original argument. Given everything that's going on around us, it's hard to imagine that anyone would believe the former is more of a threat to the republic than the latter. But I guess that's what the corruption of power is all about.