The Glorification of the Moderates

Notice how the press loves to glorify the moderates? Another example comes today with the story about how the "moderates" are insisting on civility in the debate over Iraq.

Not that the story covers it, but let's remember how the debate came to be so uncivil. Anyone remember some Democrats calling President Bush a "liar"? Saying the country was taken to war based on lies? Asserting we couldn't win?

Only in the last few weeks, as Republicans have begun to dispute these outrageous and false charges has the press begun to become concerned with "civility" in our discourse -- the same way it was worried about incivility when Republicans sought to hold Bill Clinton to account, but has been notably silent while deranged liberals natter on about Bushitlerchimp.

An example in the story itself:

"One side uses the word lie, the other side implies treason," said Jamieson, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Well, there's a big difference between saying something and implying it, as a preliminary matter. But if Bush & Co. "lied" in order to send our troops to die in a foreign war, as increasing numbers of Democrats have beeen claiming, wouldn't that be tantamount of accusing him of treason, too?

Here's why the press loves moderates: They can use Republican moderates as a basis for claiming its conservatives are "extreme" (and that's a game that McCain, Lugar et al. love to help them play). And then they can ignore the Democratic moderates (Joe Lieberman, and his hardly-covered optimistic remarks about Iraq spring immediately to mind).

What's not to like?