More than a lack of research
Reader comment on item: Giuliani's Fresh Start

Submitted by Jonathan Burack (United States), Oct 18, 2007 at 13:37

It's not just that Newsweek does no research. It's that they, like so many other left-liberal media outlets, are simply not interested in understanding their opponents. Ideas have lost any appeal for them. They are wedded to a wooden narrative that demonizes conservatives and denies the importance of ideas to conservatives, even though it is crystal clear to anyone interested how important ideas actually are to them.

This makes debating these days very frustrating, no question. However, "know thine enemy" is as key as "know thyself" to long term political success. Whatever 2008 brings (and I say go Pipes, go Rudy), in the end this indifference to ideas and distinctions will do the left in. American politics is pragmatic and messy on the surface, it is true.

But you have to have a core of concepts and ideas to prevail. Newsweek's indifference to the varieties of conservative thought arises out of its indifference to its own. No one in the end will listen to them, let alone follow them anywhere, since they make it so clear they do not know where they are going.

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