Sam Waterson, Concern Troll

I stocked the local pond with a couple of comments off an LJWorld blog called “Angell at My Table” by Marlo Angell. The post – “Unity Politics Anyone?” – was warm and inviting, asking posters & commenters to state their dream ticket for ’08. The post referenced the excitement surrounding a possible Bloomberg run. Greenwald’s recent post about Bloomberg shaped the ideas that went into my comment, and it gave me a good quote/cite to suggest Bloomberg’s hawkishness. I’m cross-posting it here with added hyperlinks:

It’s funny that there’s this call for “unity” and “moderation” now that the Democrats are poised to take the White House. People are excited about Bloomberg because he could split the Democratic vote. That’s it. We have concern trolls like Sam Waterson and his lame “Unity ‘08” Remember when Republicans were threatening to use “the nuclear option” against the filibuster? You know, before they made record use of the filibuster this last year? The now-Bloomberg-supporters were quite happy with the disunity and hyper-partisanship when it bolstered their interests.

Let’s be clear, though. Bloomberg is not a centrist. At a 2004 rally, he said that the Iraq war was in response to 9/11: “throwing in his words of support for the president's decision to invade Iraq - promoting one of the notions that is central to the rationale for the attack, that the conflict was justified by what happened on Sept. 11.”

It will be more of the same with him in office.

The comment thread goes 10 deep, but it already had a faint whiff of nuttiness with claims like: “Those who wish for such as Al Gore and Barack Obama to occupy the White House, wish in reality to bring down this great nation into a cesspool of socialism and economic disaster.”

Logan5 stated that people are turned off by extremes on both parties, and he or she referred to Ann Coulter and MoveOn as examples. Solomon took offense at the comparison and said that Coulter is “a columnist” whereas MoveOn is a “well-funded political organization which has essentially captured the Democrat party [sic] with their big bucks.” I added: I agree that Coulter and MoveOn are incomparable. Coulter is a professional plagiarist. MoveOn is a grassroots organization that opposes the war in Iraq (a stance that public opinion has resoundingly caught up with). I routinely donate money to MoveOn, whereas I wouldn’t hand Coulter a cup of water if she were sitting next to me on fire.

That wasn’t very temperate, but sideswiping Coulter is a great way to kick off the New Year.

-- temperance