Ellsworth Monkton Krugman

I think anyone with half a brain and enough time spent following American politics would agree that there is "over-the-top" opposition on both the left and the right towards the other side. If that premise is correct (and I think it is), then to suggest otherwise means that someone either:

1. is stupid
2. is uninformed
3. is twisting the truth to present the portion of it that they want you to see.

If I had to bet, I'd go with option #3 for Paul Krugman. In his recent NY times piece, he not only isolates Republicans as being "so ruthless, so willing to embrace scorched-earth tactics even if so doing undermines the ability of any future administration to govern?" he also generalizes any opposition into the "essential truth about the state of American politics" that "the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple."

Being a Republican, which Krugman is not, I prefer to speak for myself. I am not guided by pure spite, or even impure spite. I chose the Republican party in my early twenties because I thought they were the closest philosophically to my view of the role of government: a limited one. I thought the Republicans were at their best in the mid 90's when they fought for limited government, and at their worst a decade later when they spent like big-government fools during W's two terms.

Back to Krugman, he conveniently leaves out any Democrats that have been over the top. Would it be fair for someone on the right to pluck a few choice quotes from ACORN, for example, and generalize all Democrats accordingly?

He writes "Anyone surprised by the venomous, over-the-top opposition to Mr. Obama must have forgotten the Clinton years." Or the Bush years, maybe? Was there no over-the-top opposition then?

To call someone out when they go over the top is certainly fair game. To imply that it's only one party that does so, however, is the work of a spin doctor. It's a piece that I think Ellsworth Toohey, the antagonist in Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" would have been proud of.