Trimming around the edges (UPDATED)

(please scroll to bottom for update)

So, why doesn’t the liberal-Left have nearly the image problem that the conservative-Right does with its disreputable fringe elements? Because the liberal Left doesn’t have any.

While the mainstream Right fights a constant battle to marginalize and otherwise disassociate themselves from the more unsavory elements that are rightly or wrongly ascribed to the conservative movement be they the Birchers back in the 50s and early 60s to the current crop of Birthers , the Left effectively marginalizes their own unsavory elements by… accepting them into the fold.

It’s a brilliant strategy, really. How can one be outside of the mainstream of the left when one is a tenured professor, a respected inner-city pastor, a political action group favored by the speaker of the House or even a registered Democratic poll-watcher?

B-Daddy, who has been blogging up a storm lately, has some thoughts on extremism and the paranoid style of the opposition, here.

Quick side note: Our brief flirtation with greenism (hey, beach chicks dug it) was dealt a mortal blow when some such HMFIC of the Surfrider Foundation admitted without any sense of remorse that we could detect to exaggerating and fudging on claims of damage to the environment in order to be heard above the din.

Sometimes you got to do some digging and perform a little homework of your own to rise above the din of demagoguery and lies.

(UPDATE #1):

Predictable.

Recall how the tea party movement was smeared in an ad hominem fashion with the presence of a few Birthers at rallies and townhalls. And recall how every reputable conservative outlet, including this one, worked to disavow themselves of this tinfoil hat brigade.

Now that the liberal establishment had an anti-government conspiracy kook, themselves, working in the White House, what has been the response? Since hypocrisy appears to be the only sin among the liberal-Left, disavowal is out of the picture. So, it’s bop-bop, co-opt ‘til you drop, baby.

From the New Republic:

Jones was wrong, actually, in disavowing his support for 9/11 conspiracy theory. He signed the document, which can only mean that he supports the idea that 9/11 was planned, or that the Bushies knew something more than they have said, or at least that the charge is plausible enough to require investigation.

But support for that idea is hardly unknown among people of the left – and often gestural in its own way; look one of these types in the eye and ask “Do you really think George Bush and his cabinet engineered the murder of thousands and have kept the secret for eight years?” and watch the nervous pause and the look off into the distance. Speculations in this vein hardly meant that Jones was not sincerely committed to working within the government to do good.

Awesome. Let's toss the Truthers now into the mainstream of the liberal political movement.