A couple of things to note about him – every once in a while he gets a bee in his bonnet about something liberals think and then he becomes (to me at least) exceedingly unfunny – tiresome, self-righteous, uninterested in dialogue or being challenged. And as I wrote above, a month or two of his work seems to give more than just the flavor of the whole. And I found that the two previous points combine to make his tone much less enjoyable after a while.

And of course there’s the current case, and my opinion that Somerby sometimes strains for simplistic explanations for complex phenomenon and won’t admit either human stupidity or chance as possible contributors.

His archives are certainly useful – if I wanted to find an example of a particular reporter’s saying something asinine, I’d put the reporter’s name and “Gore” into the Howler’s search engine.

The mixed feelings people have about Somerby has puzzled me for over a year. One thing is that he’s not much fun, but that’s precisely because he’s actually doing original reporting and research. Some of the same people who make snide remarks about blogging as mental masturbation and light entertainment also sneer at Somerby because he’s NOT entertaining.

Somerby has a searchable database of his past issues and it is a valuable research tool for someone looking up something in his area of interest.

I concur. The problem with Coulter is that she has no talent; being sarcastic, hyperbolic and shocking is not necessarily a problem. But she is just not funny (I don’t think I’ve actually read a whole piece of hers, but I saw her on TV), and neither is Limbaugh. They are less funny than Howard Stern. Even PJ O’Rourke is head&shoulders above these folks.

Drum has a new post up in re “journalists cravenly knuckling under to the GOP’s version of Social Security political correctness”.

Rilkefan, I’ve been leaving JMM out of my criticisms. I’m pretty impressed with what he’s been doing. I think that he’s working himself around to committing himself to an independent free-lance opertion.

She remains a guilty pleasure, is all. That she actually advocates violence toward political opponents is specious. An unfunny joke at the worst.

As for the definition of center, there’s a bit of echo chambering on that going on here. Rhetorically, everyone attempts to claim the center, but to actually believe it’s true is another matter entirely.

Liberals are divided on interventionism and militarism, but militarist liberals are generally more centrist on other things too (New Dems, New Republic). I would just call them centrists.

But I think that it’s Friedman’s anti-union conviction that makes him a non liberal.

The center has moved right and liberals as I define them are scarce, but they’re not extinct. I’m just not willing to allow someone like Yglesias take over the term. Especially because the weakness of liberals and Democrats both, in my opinion, comes in part at least from the abandonment of some of the old liberal issues and from the savage attacks by centrist Democrats on the old liberals.

When someone says: ‘I am a liberal’, I intuitively understand that this person is for
1. democratic capitalism on a global scale
2. variety of social programs for the poor…
3. …financed by progressive taxation
4. secularism
5. identity politics – protecting interests of various minority groups

This person may be pro- or anti- war, so this doesn’t seem like one of the defining characteristics. This person is probably neutral towards the unions and pro- international ‘free trade’ (see #1).

Do you think this is correct, John?

And then there is also an actual Left, which is pretty small, but to the left of the liberal Democrats. Two slots to the left of Yglesias and Drum, in other words, not just one.

When Yglesias calls himself Left, that’s just centrist triumphalism. He’s not even liberal.

BUT —the thing that I am saying is wrong with the centrist Democrats is that they’re still trying to cut deals with the centrist Republicans (while continuing to condemn and marginalize the liberals and leftists)—even though the centrist Republicans are almost extinct and the survivors, eg McCain, are totally whipped.

And also, as I’ve been saying, Drum and Yglesias are keeping the option open of succeeding in the present corrupt, center-right media.

Perfect. That says it all.

Can they still be called ‘liberals’, though? Aren’t we intruding into the domain of democratic socialists (Marxists, Leninists, sata.. OK, I’ll shut up now).

And BTW, your precious Yglesias, Drum and Marshall – aren’t they pretty much the same: anti-union, pro-war, pro-globalization? That’s liberal, isn’t it? Let the businesses do what they want and then take a bit off the top of their pile and redistribute to the widows and orphans – so you can feel good about yourself.