Tornado Alley (PROG)

[BullNBear52]

The Nutsiness of Politics
By DAVID BROOKS AND GAIL COLLINS
September 15, 2010, 12:30 pm


...Something about politics these days untethers many people from reality.

but let me just give a first blush impression that opposition seems to drive some people around the bend, and this is a noxious example of that. It’s not enough to just have a 40-yard-line-to-40-yard-line disagreement. You have to pretend it’s a total disagreement.

Many Clinton opponents went around the bend. Many Bush opponents entertained loopy war-for-oil and neocon conspiracy theories. The Democrats excoriated Bush anti-terror policies as something out of the Soviet Union, and then promptly adopted 90 percent of those policies once in office.

Something about politics these days untethers many people from reality. It makes them feel heroic if the person they are opposing is uniquely evil and alien. Then in their little information cocoons these bizarre misconceptions get internalized. To keep up the three, it is necessary to invent newer and graver examples of villainy. Take a look at Christine O’Donnell’s victory speech last night in which she embraced the idea that freedoms in America are uniquely under threat. It’s all ugly narcissism, not reality.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/the-nutsiness-of-politics/?ref=opinion