Today In Both Sides Do It: Oh Lord, Thy Both Siderist Fish Are So Many And Thy Barrel So Small

There's a thing some bible people do when they're in need of a quick hit of spiritual guidance or uplift: open the bible to a random page, stick a finger on a random paragraph and read what it says.  Seems to work for some people.  As for me, my only advice is that if you're doing that, try to avoid the parts of the Old Testament that sanction things like genocide, the end of all life on Earth, or handing your virgin daughter over to an angry mob so that they'll leave you in peace.

But, as I say, seems to work for some people, and who am I to make sport of where people find comfort these days.

I mentions this because I believe it has now become almost impossible to open any op-ed page in any major newspaper anywhere in America,  stick a finger on a random paragraph and not read some godawful Both Siderist drivel by some highly paid media personage.

(Cue driftglass opening his dying local paper to the Opinion page.)

Hey look!  A column by Washington Post Bush Regime Dead-Ender and unreconstructed Torture Pimp Marc Theissen entitled "Joe Biden in the Democrat's Mitt Romney" taking up one-third of the page.  And while this may get the blood moving in the veins of octogenarian wingnuts where I live here in Trump Country, this morning I can't.  Just can't.

Hey look!  The other two-thirds of the page (minus a cartoon and one letter) is taken up by a syndicated column by Insufferably Smug Washington Post Conservative Kathleen Parker entitled "Trump will survive impeachment -- and be stronger for it" .

And around and around my finger goes, until I poke it ... right ... here (emphasis added):

When people examine the lineup of the president’s congressional prosecutors — Mother Superior Nancy Pelosi, the prim and pursed-lipped Adam Schiff and grumpy scold-meister Jerrold Nadler — it’s easy to imagine why some might rather take their chances with a player like Trump. Remember, life is a continuation of high school, and Congress is just one big gymnasium.

This isn’t to say that Republicans emerge as valiant crusaders for the moral good. Both sides have behaved poorly, and “winning,” alas, isn’t an option...

And to contradict the title of my own blog post, hunting Both Siderist turds in the media punch bowl is not, in fact, like shooting fish in a barrel.

It is like shooting legless mouse babies.

In a teacup.

With an RPG.

And if you would like the world to know how god damn sick of it you are ... we've got merch!

Today in Both Sides Do It

To no one's surprise, The Greatest  Blogger in the World Who Has No Fucking Idea How His Adopted Country Actually Works is deeply troubled by both sides in Ferguson.

...

I agree with those who argue that the police’s interaction with young black men is, in too many cases, riddled with bias and far too quick to use lethal force. But I agree with others that the Michael Brown case is not the case with which to make that argument. And the liberal reflex to turn it into a synecdoche is a troubling one for reasons John Judis lays out:

Liberals took the decision by the grand jury to symbolize, or stand in for, the greater injustice of the Ferguson and of the American criminal justice department. But in fact the reverse occurred. They projected the larger injustice of the system onto the grand jury’s ruling.

I’m reminded of the case of Matthew Shepard, where the need to project the injustice of violence against gay men onto one complicated case blinded people to a more interesting and complex reality. Michael Brown did not deserve to die, any more than Matthew Shepard did. But that doesn’t mean both are perfect victims, unalloyed by all the flaws that flesh is heir to; or that their deaths illustrated pure random homophobia or pure racism. And this need for perfect victims is of a piece with a church of liberalism in which there is only one way to be good – a member of a minority – and only one sin – prejudice. All churches need saints and martyrs. But liberalism – no more than conservatism – should never be a church. It’s as dangerous to civil politics as Christianism.

I have not the first idea what this river of meandering twaddle even means other than A)  Mr. Sullivan continues to know fuck-all about how his adopted country actually works, and B) like all Both Siderist Conservatives -- especially those who live far, far removed from the realities of daily life in the parts of this country which do not make up the 10 block area around their home in D.C. -- if Mr. Sullivan cannot distill some imaginary Liberal thoughcrime to bitch about from every wingut inflected atrocity his head will explode.