Look to the Left

Every once in a great while, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” enjoy composing a “post” that will flaunt our unimpeachable integrity. You know: The sort of rumination that goes a long way toward proving we’re not the Halliburton-owned shills for the evil right-wing that one finds all throughout Al Gore’s World-Wide Web.

After all, when we ripped Ann Coulter and Michael Savage to shreds, we earned the kudos of no less an e-eminence than Andrew Sullivan, who kindly noted our inherent reasonableness. Naturally, it isn’t exactly difficult to excoriate these two knuckle-dragging whack-jobs. Pretty much anyone with a pulse can determine that they’re little more than self-promoting twits. (And Michael Savage has a really nice pair of gams.)

Still, we must admit that it’s nice to take a break from all the conservative caterwauling from time to time—or else we’ll start to sound like an illogical, mal-educated undergraduate who can’t figure out why his arguments in opposition to intellectual diversity are so obtuse. Hypothetically, of course.

So, without further ado, dear reader, we present to you a short list of liberal politicians and intellectuals who have earned our respect. With so many left-wing twits twittering about—Jack Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Eric Alterman, Keith Olbermann, Katrina vanden Heuvel, et al.—it seems reasonable to offer a few words of mild praise for lefties whose views make us think.

Here, then, is an obviously partial list of smart, interesting liberals:

Martin Peretz: Okay, so Mr. Peretz, the editor-in-chief of The New Republic is well known as the most conservative staff member at TNR. He’s also an unflinching friend of Israel, which makes him a beacon of sense and morality. But what particularly impresses us about Mr. Peretz is his genuine dislike of flabby arguments. He detests knee-jerk leftism, which makes his critiques of the political Right disciplined and honest.

Michael Walzer: As editor of the democratic socialist quarterly Dissent, Mr. Walzer might strike some as a little too lefty for our tastes. In fact, however, he’s a very smart man who’s doing his best to revive what he would call a “decent Left.” In a desert of obtuse left-wing magazines (Z, The Nation, The American Prospect, &c.), Dissent is a veritable oasis.

Juan Williams: Yes, yes, yes—we don’t always agree with Mr. Williams. He’s wrong on Iraq, for instance, and, more generally, he’s bad on foreign policy. But he’s a rare bird in the world of cable news: A thoughtful, reasonable left-wing pundit. Further, Mr. Williams appears to have genuine concern for the plight of his fellow black Americans, and thus doesn’t merely rehash the same lefty bromides about race in the US.

Ben Nelson: A good moderate Democratic senator from Nebraska. Other than the fact that he’s from Nebraska, what’s not to love? We’d take thousands of Ben Nelsons over one Chuck Hagel.

E.J. Dionne: If you ask us, Mr. Dionne is the most thought-provoking of liberal op-ed folk. Sure, he’s often wrong—sometimes miserably so. But his pieces seldom degenerate into fatuity; he actually argues, instead of hectoring. Would that Maureen Dowd could learn a lesson or two from him!

Joe Lieberman: Gee, do we really have to explain this one? We may be the only ones, but we can feel the Joe-mentum, baby.

So, dear reader, there you have it: Proof positive that we’re not running some sort of Internet equivalent of Pravda. Man, it feels good to be so full of integrity, doesn’t it?