Hell hath no fury . . .

. . . like a pissed-off liberal.

Guys, with Al Gore continuing his psychological meltdown, Dick Cheney yelling "fuck you" to Sen. Pat Leahy on the Senate floor yesterday, Michael Moore peddling yet more of his goddamned agitprop and lies in his new film (with many people gladly believing them), I'm beginning to believe that 9/11 didn't merely herald the "War on Terror" but that it also triggered a cultural civil war in America. I have never sensed such hostility and animus in our politics before and I'm afraid that it's going to continue to get worse before it gets better.

The term "Culture War" was way overused in the 90's and it usually meant anything having to do with gay issues. Most people, Southern white boy Baptists like myself included, are pretty laissez-faire about gays and are inclined to let them do whatever they want - including get married - provided they don't interfere with other people living their lives. The Culture War of the 90's wasn't so much fought and won by any particular party (and you have only to look at all the gay-themed programming on TV nowadays to see who won) as it was not really fought at all. Most conservatives like me may shake our heads at shows like "Queer Eye" but usually we do so with a smile. I may bitch about it from time to time, but I think "Will and Grace" is funny as hell.

But this . . . this bullshit is different. This photo of our former vice-president - before being photoshopped of course - was taken while he delivered a speech in which he called Pres. Bush a liar. He didn't insinuate it, he didn't hint at it and wink at his audience; he outright called him a liar. Screamed it too, from what I read. This, from our former vice-president. Anyone remember how badly George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle blasted and jeered at Bill Clinton during the whole Monica affair? You don't? That's because it didn't fucking happen. Unlike the Gorebot here, they respected propriety and they knew that it wasn't their place to get involved in that mess. Thank God Clinton has mostly bitten his tongue and hasn't taken to baiting Bush like Gore has. And thank God Gore wasn't elected president. Thank God for that.

But why this rage on the part of liberals? Why the apoplexy? Why so much spittle-flying fury? One writer I know pegged it when he wrote that liberals have "unleashed their id." I think that's right, but still, the question begs, why? Was it Florida? I don't think so. For instance, a lot of people think Jack Kennedy stole the 1960 election from Nixon because of the shenanigans of the Daley machine in Chicago. But even though conservatives were mad about it, they didn't come psychologically unhinged, like the left is doing now. I don't think that's it, even though the left likes to scream "Florida!" and use it as a trope. Rather, I think this writer pegged it when wrote about liberal rage thusly:

The particular venom with which the Liberals regard President Bush is at heart a reaction to what they perceive as a coup d'etat directed against the carefully constructed edifice of their historical achievements. To understand why the President and individuals like Paul Wolfowitz are described as "illegitimate", one should not, like the man who doesn't get the reference, look to the Florida chads or US Supreme Court decisions. Liberals are not talking about that kind of statutory legitimacy. Rather they are referring to what is perceived as a brazen attempt to negate the cultural equivalent of the Brezhnev doctrine, the idea that certain "progressive" modes of behavior, once attained, are irreversible. In this view, an entire set of attitudes, commonly referred to as "political correctness" and their institutional expressions, like the United Nations, have become part of a social contract, part of an unwritten constitution.

Anyone who has ever had opportunity to engage a liberal in debate will know what he's talking about here. I do so regularly and I can tell you that it's infuriating how they simply assume their unexamined opinions are capital-T Truth just because they're on the side of "the little guy" and thus, presumably, the angels. The writer continues:

But worst of all, liberals [after 9/11] were faced with an intellectual movement, one that had developed an alternative ideology, a competing explanation for the way the world worked. Prior to that, Conservatives, however distasteful, were inchoate; they had tacitly acknowledged the intellectual leadership of the Liberal project. No more. Now Liberals were confronted with people who didn't want to read the New York Times, were unimpressed by celebrity and didn't want to go to Harvard. Many liberals didn't recognize "their" familiar country any more.

We can only hope that, after the election (assuming Bush wins, which I think he will) the tone will quieten and these "pissed off liberals" as they call themselves, will slink off and decide to get a life. But between now and November though (and, my hopes notwithstanding, probably after too) it's gonna be ugly.