On health care: as usual the liberal quasi-left is flummoxed by the activist right. You can't argue with irrationalism but you can undermine its position in the minds of its adherents. Liberals would be better defenders of liberalism if they knew what it was they were defending.

Liberals are so convinced of their own rationality that they can't see how much of it is rhetoric, and how much of that is hollow. American liberals have been moving slowly towards sympathy with the Palestinians, but given the facts of the situation over the past 60 years why was this (slow) motion even necessary? 'Reason' obviously isn't reason enough.

I'm linking to this even though the rhetoric is stupid, simplistic, and self-indulgent. My comments have been removed. What the post describes is fascism; unlike Josh Marshall I have no problem admitting that because unlike Josh Marshall I'm not even tempted to defend it. But the author of the post is a bit of a racist and I won't defend that either. The Jews are a people, just as the Roma are a people. And the Jews are Semites. But I wouldn't defend the expulsion of three quarters of a million people from northern India to give the Roma a country of their own. That's the point. And I would never say "The [X,Y, or Z] are a generous people." But yes, of course a bi-national state is the only moral choice, while here at least, liberals are happy to defend a logic somewhere between Garveyism and the dream of Jorg Haider, as long as its dreamer is a Jew. And in Israel even Uri Avnery wants Jews to live alone.