This Is How They Talk

Megablogger chatter about the deft style of persuasion practiced by Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake. Glenn Reynolds:

JEEZ: "Hamsher replied to Althouse's post about civility in public discourse by calling her an idiot and portraying her as a baboon."

It's like seventh grade, in some parts of the blogosphere.  Related item here.

UPDATE:  The BullMoose observes: "Over and over again, the lefty bloggers contend that their major objective is not an ideological one but rather a partisan one. They claim that they want to win. Badly. The Moose begs to differ. It is not the goal of the left to prevail, but rather to purify."

Indeed.  Otherwise they'd be more concerned with making friends than with, er, influencing people....

Last year I gave up reading a famed liberal blogger who had some interesting things to say but was a Hamsher fan. I don't need that aroma as a routine part of my diet. This latest kerfluffle is linked to Hamsher's description of Joe Lieberman as "Rape Gurney Joe" because he doesn't think Catholic hospitals should be forced to violate Catholic teaching on abortion and contraception. Ann Althouse questions the effectiveness of that brutal language; Hamsher reflects on the issue and decides Althouse is an idiotic baboon.

Go, netroots.

This is how they talk. In a recent post here, The Hell We Don't Welcome Faith, I had to acknowledge an error because I'd attributed to Hamsher what another poster ("pachacutec") posted about Barak Obama and his speech about politics and faith. Correct attribution is Journalism and Blogging 101, but when everybody speaks the same language it's easy to lose track. Pachacutec (apologies for the profanity):

But this bullshit  from Barack Obama is Bill Clinton’s fault.  The greatest victory of the radical right wing has been to train Democratic politicians to disrespect, mischaracterize and run against their base in the progressive movement.  And that is Bill Clinton’s fault.... Idiots like Obama still think the path to power is to spin Karl Rove’s lies into oratorical gold to gin up support from people who would rather see him in shackles than see him in national office. ...

Unrestrained rage doesn't win too many elections, and I don't object if the left doesn't figure that out for awhile. Meanwhile I notice Hamsher referring to Althouse's "delicate ears." Uh huh.

UPDATE: Some commenters at Althouse are making the valid point that ugly language and rage are not unknown on the right. True. Is the foul-mouthed seething-rage faction as influential on the right? I don't think so.

UPDATE: Geez, talk about proving my point.