I’ll grant that they use different arguments to delegitimize, and the right has an advantage in the territory they stake out.

I await your post with baited breath.

I have no short answer, so perhaps I need to work up a blog entry on it. I’ve long been among the “about even” crowd, too, so I admit that what I’m *feeling* right may be getting the better of what I’m *thinking.*

That said, I think I can at the very least make a case that the two sides delegitimize in different ways and that the right is “better” at it.

Okay…let me work on it.

Basically, the two arguments go like this:

If you’re right and they’re left: They’re immoral, un-patriotic big-gov. conspiracy theorists bent on taking away your guns.

If you’re left and they’re right: They’re extremist zealots who hide behind the flag to invade your bedroom and taking away your civil rights.

Pretty well sums it up right there. FWIW, I find there are reasonable people I can converse with who differ with me politically – as long as we can agree that there’s a common ground to discuss. If I’m a simpleton who’s been hoodwinked for disagreeing with someone (which seems to be the dominant belief among some liberal authors e.g. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805073396/qid=1095109214/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ksr_1/103-9551776-1734237?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 ), then there’s not much to discuss.

I detect in some of the post-9/11 discourse–mostly from the right but also from the left–increasing attempts to delegitimize the opposition. This has always been SOP to a certain extent. I think it’s getting worse. I may be wrong.

I have no actual analysis of whether there is or isn’t a major psychological change, or what contributed to it if it exists, but I will say that it seems to me that a major undercurrent of casual political discussion just now is a sense that everything you value is under attack. Whoever ‘you’ are. The right, the left, the middle. The apathetic. Everybody feels that they and their lives are at risk. The institution of marriage is at risk. Freedom of speech is at risk. Our teenagers are at risk of the draft. Our paychecks are at risk from the tax man. Our pensions are at risk from the stockbroker. Our minds are at risk from the ‘media’ who want to brainwash us, or corrupt us, or bankrupt us.

All of this is true, to some extent or other, but by putting that fear at the center of our lives, we react with hostility

Throwing mud at your political adversaries has a long, long tradition in the U.S. For as long as I can remember (back to the late sixties), the left has dominated academia with very few exceptions (Pepperdine University, University of Chicago econ. department). The left has dominated Hollywood to the extent that movies touching on politics and social issues are made. The right has always been a more grass-roots affair, and as the radio people will tell you, no mass medium is better placed to serve a particular audience.

Are the charges you listed hyperbole, over-the-top? Yes.

Has the left not been equally guilty of hyperbole in its criticism of President Bush, Dick Cheyney, Newt Gingrich and other conservative/Republican public figures?

Were any of them more civil and responsible on September 10, 2001 than today? Not from where I see it.

“What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1, verse 9, King James Version