the new know-nothings

They’re under-30 strongly partisan Dems with a big voice in the blogosphere and with a troubling inability to step outside their own shoes and their own cocoon. Plus, they know little about the world beyond. It makes them utterly blind to reality.

Case in point, MYDD’s Matt Stoller, who bases an entire argument for what Dems should hope for in Colorado on a pitiful lack of imagination.

I can’t find any Iraq polling that’s specific to Colorado, but I also can’t imagine that the Iraq war is very popular in Colorado.

He actually believes that Colorado, whose suburban population one of the most staid, conformist, and conservative in the nation, is fervently against the war.

What to they teach those young ‘uns at Harvard, anyway? Certainly, Stoller didn’t learn to think critically.

[NYT columnist Thomas] Friedman holds a special place in my development.  I took a class from him at college on ‘globalization’, and read most of his books.  In 2002, he and Ken Pollack were the two people that I relied on for guidance with regards to Iraq.  I trusted him.  I believed in him.  

Matt Stoller relied on the guidance of others before deciding where he stood on the war. That was his first mistake. Then he believed in Thomas Friedman. Why? He allowed his heart and mind to be won over to a hawkish position, and now he blames the believers who made him believe.

My mistake in looking at the Iraq war still pains me, and though I was a 24 year old kid with no experience in foreign policy or politics, my gullibility and the betrayal from my former guides still colors my thinking.  For someone like Friedman, who should know better and occupies the most valuable opinion space in the world, it’s stunningly immoral to pretend to having no responsibility in this quagmire.  All of us are responsible, and the first step is to admit error.  

Oh, you were only 24. That’s a great explanation.

Knock yourself out with the self-criticism, dude. The only people who care about it live alongside you in progressiveland.