For Rocky Top Brigade member Barry

I do give a great deal of thought when I am challenged on my tolerance and tact. I do not wish to be counter-productive.

Perhaps a couple of maxims (pour moi) apply.
1) THE LIBERALS AND THE LEFT BY VIRTUE OF THEIR POLITICS TEND TO BE TOO TOLERANT. Does the LEFT have an equivalent of Rush, Hannity, Coulter, O’reilly, Savage, Robertson, Falwell, Liddy, North, and Carlson? Who? Carville or Begala might come to mind but they are closer to Matalin and Novak in temperment. If you flush out the list of likely RIGHT leaning pundits to include Sununu, Schafley, Buckley, Buchanan, Kilpatrick, Scarborough and their ilk you might counter with Mike Kinsley or Bill Press but where does it go from there? The tone of debate is set by the obvious debators and these by in large are the ones who set the tone of debate. In the press we have Dowd V. Safire and Dionne V. Will but these are more tolerant examples of debate. Unless you can show me a pit bull of some stature on the left who uses the language of Limbaugh and Liddy or the vituperation and invective of Coulter and O’reilly I would say that any intolerance I show is somewhat warranted.
2) THE PARTY IN POWER IS ALLOWED LESS TOLERANCE THAN THE PARTY THAT IS OUT OF POWER. In other word the powerful have less need of intolerance and strong language. They have the power politically to effect the changes they wish to see made. The powerless have little to use to get their point across and to effect change except their words.

It is because of these maxims that I can loudly decry the whining of Hobbs and Rich when Hobbs (see Hobbs online in the RTB to the left) moans about a liberal bias at the Tennessean in 1994 or Rich (see Rich Hailey in the RTB to the left) wails about the bigotry against Republicans. Both seem to be saying: “Oh whoa is me. I’m rich, white, powerful, on top politically, own the Presidency, the congress, the Supreme Court, the FBI, Justice, the CIA, the oil, the weapons, the gun lobby, the banks, most of the money, and much of the airwaves but I can’t catch a break from these nasty bigoted liberals and their liberal media.”
HOW MUCH CAN WE TAKE BEFORE WE BECOME A LITTLE LESS TOLERANT ?????

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