Watching as Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake gets raked over the coals by conservatives for her jaw dropping portrayal of Senator Lieberman in blackface over at HuffPo, I couldn't help but have a twinge of sympathy for her.
Not because I care that conservatives are being really, really nasty towards the bitch. She deserves every mean thing said about her and then some. She's a female version of Glenn Greenwald, Dave Niewert, and Billmon all rolled up into a disgusting Rouladen of snark, snippiness, and snobbishness so disturbingly vile that after reading her hysterical rants against righties, you feel compelled to decontaminate your laptop in order to prevent the spread of some flesh crawling contagion.
My sympathy for Mrs. Hamsher lies with the fact that being a liberal is such a challenge to rational thought that only a select breed of human is capable of the feat. Think about it for a minute. How many aggrieved races, classes, ethnic groups, sexual orientations, oppressed minorities, mentally challenged, physically challenged, weight challenged, sexually repressed, sexually aberrant people does a liberal have to keep track of so that when trying to be funny they don't step on anyone's toes?
It must be like living life in a minefield. One misstep and BOOM! All of a sudden, you're an Internet verb.
Can you imagine the thought processes a liberal has to go through in order to try and be funny? I mean, do you think they have a list of forbidden words tattooed on the inside of their thighs so that they remember not to use gay" when talking about people who are simply happy? Or "niggardly" to describe miserly behavior?
Perhaps this is why most liberal bloggers are so deadly serious. It's the only way they can be truly amusing. When Glenn Greenwald accuses conservatives of being incipient authoritarians or when Dave Niewert posits prestidigitation as a reason that conservatives sound like neo-Nazis, we should remember that these are considered real knee slappers by liberals and not to take either these gentlemen or their ideas with any seriousness whatsoever.
Of course, there are other things that makes a liberal's life a living hell. Keeping up with the latest in grievance group news must be a pain in the butt. Scouring the papers daily for that telltale whine from some newly oppressed sub-sub-group of an already oppressed minority can be a real chore. But Gaia's chosen ones must put their all into the effort to bring the sub-sub-group's grievance to light. There are meetings to organize, T-Shirts to be printed, editorials to be written, blogbursts, blegs, and blab-fests to be highlighted.
And then there's that trip to the tattoo parlor to get another word etched on the inside of their thigh, one more sub-sub group they can't afford to injure by using some offending nomenclature while trying to be amusing.
Article comments
1 - zingzing
mmhmm. luckily, most liberals aren't hamshers and most conservatives aren't cheney's.
"hamshers..."
life's not so hard as a liberal. actually feeling open to life's possibilities is quite, um, liberating. it's just an extension of the fact that i don't like underwear.
2 - Dave Nalle
It's not clear to me that Hamsher is a liberal. She seems to be a socialist (aka 'progressive') who really, really hates Joe Lieberman with a fiery, hot, even insane passion.
Dave
3 - Rick Moran
The editor took out my calling Hamsher "Hamster." Maybe she thought it was a typo...
As for her politics, she thinks of herself as a moderate. No, I'm not kidding.
Maybe like Trotsky was a moderate compared to Lenin.
4 - Martin Lav
Being a liberal can't be nearly as difficult as keeping track of the "unknown knowns or known unknowns" that the right has to keep track of.
I mean, you either want OBL dead or alive, or you don't think about him much, you want to protect our borders, but you want the cheap labor, you want to carry guns, but not let photo's published of flag draped coffins, you want less government and beaucracy, yet you spend freely, you want democracy throughout the middle east, yet you won't let the freely elected in power.
I think being a liberal these days is far easier than being a conservative. In fact, didn't Karl Rove appear in black face before the grand jury? Or did he just bring puppets?
5 - Dave Nalle
Martin, your last comment is a perfect example of the fallacy of thinking of people as groups rather than individuals. People on the right, taken as a block, do have contradictory opinions, but if you ask any individual he will hold only one set of opinions which don't contradict each other, at least in most cases. And I hate to burst your bubble, but it's just as bad on the left if you look at them as a group rather than individually.
I think being a liberal these days is far easier than being a conservative.
Being a liberal is NEVER easy. That's why most of the left isn't liberal and just appropriates the name instead. That's easy.
Dave
6 - Martin Lav
The sides are polarized, the country is polarized, the world is polarized.....and rightly so I say......Lieberman will pay the price for his moderation and so will most of the band of 14, as wishy washy Kerry did in 04. The problem with the liberal left (in my opinion) is that they don't stick to their convictions as strongly as the right and therefore get the crap kicked out of them. I agree with you in general that individually people can have differing views, but taken as a whole, which our appointed leaders have to do and we have to do as voters, we have to pick a philosophical side and I would say the it is beyond obvious that the RIGHT is wrong this time around and this government, country, this world is NOT better off with their general agenda and views on the war on terror.
7 - pleasexcusetheinteruption12
Yep I think Dave's got it exactly right. Take his quote
"Martin, your last comment is a perfect example of the fallacy of thinking of people as groups rather than individuals. People on the right, taken as a block, do have contradictory opinions, but if you ask any individual he will hold only one set of opinions which don't contradict each other, at least in most cases."
and substitue Rick for Martin, "this article" for "your last comment" and left for right. Of course, Rick is right, being a liberal and all I suppose im just taking this whole thing way too seriously...
8 - Dave Nalle
But Matin, would we be any better off with the feckless socialism and pandering of the left? The problem is that the country is generally not inclined to elect those who are willing to address hard truths and take necessary risks.
Dave
9 - Lisa McKay
The editor took out my calling Hamsher "Hamster." Maybe she thought it was a typo...
You're right, the editor did think it was a typo, especially since you started out by calling her by her proper name.
10 - pleasexcusetheinteruption12
This ferocious stereotyping of liberals is actually quite funny. See we liberals arent funny because we dont need to tell our own jokes, you guys are all the entertainment we need. But I wouldnt want to stereotype conservatives as a bunch of deer huntin bible bangin uneducated bone heads now would I? I mean that might get me a permenant ban from the PC gods..
11 - Martin Lav
Dave,
I would agree with you if that was entirely true of the position of the left. I know it's a common belief by the right, but government spending and a social welfare state is not only what the left is about. I agree there has to be some moderation and that's why we have two parties. I'm not trying to contradict myself, but .... oh forget it...... YES THAT IS WHAT THE LEFT IS ABOUT ..... so, let's spend federal money on abortions, gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research and be done with it!
Oh and by the way, let's define the war on terrorism and decide who's the enemy and focus on that and figure out a way to "contain" the sponsors of the axis of evil.
12 - Nancy
I should think it would be exceptional to be someone who IS consistent in all their policies & thoughts, etc. I know I myself, like the Red Queen in 'Alice', usually am capable of thinking at least a dozen contradictory thoughts all at the same time, every day.
13 - Kunga
Lieberman thanks Hamsher for campaign gift
14 - Martin Lav
Another death-blow to bloggers....
Dave?
15 - IgnatiusReilly
"if you ask any individual he will hold only one set of opinions which don't contradict each other, at least in most cases. "
You need to speak with more pro-war, pro-death penalty Christians because many humans are constantly rationalizining their opinions.