Often, reading GD is like watching a tetherball game.

[Burgman]

Keith is Great! Keith is terrible!

MSNBC is great! MSNBC is right wing!

Cenk is a savior! Cenk is the antichrist!

Matt is an ass! He's a great journalist!

We're talking about talking heads here for the most part. They spout their own opinions or the opinions fed to them by others in many cases. I have yet in my years to meet a person with whom I agree completely.

Hey, we have so few on our side that get a public platform compared to the Faux and AM radio powerhouses it might behoove us to give it more than five minutes before burning effigies in the square.

As a rule, I think knee jerk reactions are usually a poor thing.

[PeaceNikki]

1. Unicorn teatherball is my fave

?101029

[SixthSense]

2. and the harder you hit the ball

the faster it spins 'round the pole to bean you in the back of the head!

[one_voice]

3. ......

[grantcart]

4. Love this thread

Your full of crap!

[Burgman]

5. LOL. You have the essence, grasshopper.

[frazzled]

6. Hedgehogs and foxes

The late social and political theorist Isaiah Berlin once made the distinction between those who are "hedgehogs" and those who are "foxes." Though he was talking about famous writers, the distinction has carried on over the years into other realms. Hedgehogs know one big thing (I suppose we'd call them the passionate ones, the ideologues); foxes know many things (they're the complex thinkers, the analysts).

I think we could apply that metaphor to the great divide here at DU. (Nick Kristof once wrote that the foxes always win in the end, though there is not a shred of proof probably for this).

Hand in hand with this is a "style" thing. Some like in-your-face, knock-'em-down, confrontational personalities and writers; others like nuanced, scholarly, and sophisticated writers. Sometimes we all like something in between. But the basic split remains: and it will never be bridged, I think.

[Burgman]

7. Wonderful post. But I hate that it makes me allied with foxes.