Dave “Mudcat” Saunders - who works for John Edwards - wrote a post for Time’s Swampland in which he lashes out to (certain) progressive bloggers. He writes:

I have bitched and moaned for years about the lack of tolerance in the elitist wing of the Democratic Party, or what I refer to as the “Metropolitan Opera Wing”. These are the people who talk of tolerance but the only true tolerance they ever exhibit is for their own pseudo-intellectual arrogance.

If you want a perfect example of how this “intolerance” is helping the Democrats lose national elections, check out the responses to Joe Klein’s post on Paris and Libby. To be clear, I have no problem with incivility. After all, I’m in the political business. However, as a pilgrim in the blogosphere, I thought blogging was for exchange of ideas, not personal attacks. Like his post or not, Klein in no way compromised the integrity of the fourth estate. This was not a news story. He was simply stating his opinion. Unless fourth estate integrity has been compromised, there is no rationale for calling him a “jackass”, “fool”, or “elite white guy”.

Dave, Dave… Dave. You don’t understand: the ‘liberal’ blogosphere is all about personal attacks. It is something like a hobby for these people; perhaps even a calling. It is what they do best. They are - normally - bad writers (with bad ideas of course), so they have to distinguish themselves from the pack by something else. Usually that results in the use of the f-word every other sentence and insulting those who might disagree with them on certain issues.

Oops: I think just did the same as I accuse them of doing.

Progressive bloggers responded to Mudcat’s post and… they’re not happy. For an impression visit:
- Taylor Marsh’s blog
- Daily Kos
- MyDD

Of course “Mudcat” has a point. Lord knows that I do not agree with progressive bloggers on many issues and I am also well aware of the aggressive nature of quite some progressive bloggers, commenters and readers but… if you want to deal with this, if you want to address this issue, it is probably best not to tell them to “go to hell.” Besides, as someone working for John Edwards, perhaps it is best not to address the issue at all - at least not publicly and not by insulting them. After all, the progressive blog community supports Edwards.

Well. It did.