QOTD

Maimon Schwarzschild on The Right Coast:

Last week may have been a turning point in one way, almost regardless of who wins the election, but certainly if McCain actually wins. The week brought into the open - in a way that almost no one in the country could ignore - some of the craziness that has taken over among many liberals and Democrats in the past eight to ten years. Not necessarily crazy policies so much as a crazy spirit: a kind of extremist temper, a John-Birch-Society-of-the-left atmosphere.

It's an atmosphere rightly associated with college and university campuses, where a hectoringly intolerant political orthodoxy took over, in many cases, years ago. . .

Most of the mainstream media share it as well - in diluted form certainly, compared to the full nuttiness on campus. The media have been important in promoting it: directly by telling only one side of the story (the leftist narrative, to put it in leftist jargon); and indirectly by covering for the growing craziness - almost never mentioning what's going on at Kos or Democratic Underground or Harper's or even in the ordinary conversation of a growing number of ever-more-wildly-talking ordinary liberals across the country.

The frenzy about Sarah Palin has changed things, maybe permanently. It was (and is) a reflex spasm of hatred, coming from people - obviously including lots and lots of the media - who had never heard of Sarah Palin until McCain announced her. (Just a week ago Friday: it seems longer ago than that, doesn't it?) It almost instantly went far beyond an inquiry into her qualifications and fitness for the vice presidency - about which reasonable people can certainly differ. The unhinged animus (good word; nothing to do with pigs) is too obvious for anyone to miss. And instead of carefully ignoring it or smoothing it over with public-relations cover, as the media usually do with anything ugly on the left, this time the media openly joined in and led the crazy charge.