In Detroit, it used to be that the News was more conservative and the Free Press was more liberal. Since the JOA, they run about the same. The only difference is the funnies..... (Sigh!)

The facts have a clear liberal bias.

JON STEWART: Here's what puzzles me most, Rob. John Kerry's record in Vietnam is pretty much right there in the official records of the US military, and haven't been disputed for 35 years?

ROB CORDDRY: That's right, Jon, and that's certainly the spin you'll be hearing coming from the Kerry campaign over the next few days.

STEWART: Th-that's not a spin thing, that's a fact. That's established.

CORDDRY: Exactly, Jon, and that established, incontrovertible fact is one side of the story.

STEWART: But that should be -- isn't that the end of the story? I mean, you've seen the records, haven't you? What's your opinion?

CORDDRY: I'm sorry, my *opinion*? No, I don't have 'o-pin-i-ons'. I'm a reporter, Jon, and my job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other. Little thing called 'objectivity' -- might wanna look it up some day.

STEWART: Doesn't objectivity mean objectively weighing the evidence, and calling out what's credible and what isn't?

CORDDRY: Whoa-ho! Well, well, well -- sounds like someone wants the media to act as a filter! 'Ooh, this allegation is spurious! Upon investigation this claim lacks any basis in reality! Mmm, mmm, mmm.' Listen buddy: not my job to stand between the people talking to me and the people listening to me.

—The Daily Show

Doug, what I think you meant to say was that traditionally, liberals prefer facts, while conservatives prefer authority and faith, no? The American left vs right, however, doesn't fit this mold, since conservatives often represent the classical liberal position, while "liberals" often represent some form of socialism, which is as authoritarian a faith as any. Facts such as the natural inequality of man or the innate differences between the sexes are often underreported by so-called liberal champions. Where the Right gets it wrong is in its alliance with people who espouse an equally silly denial of evolution and geology.

The liberal (yes, including the Wilsonian) attitude towards international relations and war, by the way, so ignores the facts of human nature and the facts of history, that no one in his right mind would suggest that facts on the ground support some American leftist position. American leftists don't care about facts when it comes to international affairs, in part because they have largely taken up the old cause of isolationism which itself is a denial of the fact that much of happens in the world affects America (not that the current administration is much better in foreign affairs).

Chuck:

Doug, what I think you meant to say was that traditionally, liberals prefer facts, while conservatives prefer authority and faith, no?

You're reading too much into my thought processes which were pretty minimal in this instance. I was pretty much just parroting a joke by Stephen Colbert. As it turns out, I butchered it a bit:

I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical. And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's yogurt. But I refuse to believe it's not butter. Most of all, I believe in this president.

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. 32% means the glass -- it's important to set up your jokes properly, sir. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

Could someone please explain to me just what the left's 'Wilsonian isolationism' is supposed to be? And who with any real influence in the Democratic party ascribes to it?

Uh, the reference to Wilsonianism was a punch at the administration. I don't think I talked about such a thing as Wilsonian isolationism. I talked about isolationism, and I talked about Wilsonianism. I'm not a right-winger mixing up terminology - I was just venting.

I still have no clue what you're talking about. So now this administration is liberal (?!?), and represents the failure of liberal Wilsonianism; but at the same time the left has by and large been taken with isolationism... huh? Your previous comment is still rather confused, whether or not it's a basic terminological confusion. (And I still would like to know who outside of the Chomskyites represents this isolationist tendency that you think characterizes "the left".)

Many apologies for a muddled rant. My aim was not to attack some particular policy or platform, either of the right or left, but to address the argument that those on the left are generally more concerned with facts and with reality than those on the right. I tried to show that the left ignores facts when it is convenient to do so, just as the right does (even if I failed to do this, that was my aim). When I spoke of "liberalism" I didn't necessarily mean "the current anti-Bush coalition consisting mostly of Democrats, some liberals, some socialists, and others". When I described leftists as having "taken up the mantle of isolationism" I was referring to the current effort my some Democratic politicians, and many anti-war types, to pull American troops immediately out of Iraq. Yesterday a Democratic Congressman from the Bronx made the old argument about opening up grocery stores in Iraq but not supporting them in America. I spend a lot of time criticizing Republican politicians, so I thought I'd spend one comment criticizing the anti-war left. When I implied that Bush is a "liberal", I was referring to his justification of the war in Iraq as an instance of spreading democracy overseas. While Bush is certainly no liberal in most regards, it is not unheard of to describe his stated foreign policy goals as Wilsonian (which is certainly liberal, right?), even if the results don't quite live up to the rhetoric. So, again, my apologies for the rather clouded remarks.

Also, it should be addressed what any discussion of pacificism, Wilsonianism, and other high-minded tenents traditionally considered liberal or progressive (again, I'm sorry that Bush has taken up a nominally liberal cause, at least in his rhetoric, but that's what he's done) has to do with whether liberalism is more concerned with facts. I would argue that idealism of any kind is often to be admired and pursued, but that it sometimes runs aground in the face of reality. Idealists then either proceed to alter their aims, or deny reality. Many on the left choose to deny reality. Many on the right to this too, and probably more often. So it comes to the crux of what I was trying to say all along: a shameless, unprincipled pragmatism which seeks the best solution for each particular situation is often the best course in politics: sometimes this will lead to an inconsistent broad policy, but on the whole it works better for a broadly inconsistent reality. It can be guided by certain noble aims, but its methods must be pragmatic and realistic. That's what I was getting at yesterday, even though I largely didn't succeed. In the future, if I don't have something coherent to say, I won't say anything at all :)

A few thoughts. First, if you want to use words like "liberal" to encompass a large platform of positions that do not map neatly on to the divisions of the current American political landscape, that's fine. But then you absolutely cannot help yourself to the usual synonymization of "liberal" and "left" -- it's an intellectually risky move at best, but under these circumstances, it's simply unsustainable.

Second, there is an obvious tension between the following two statements of yours:
"When I described leftists as having "taken up the mantle of isolationism" I was referring to the current effort my some Democratic politicians, and many anti-war types, to pull American troops immediately out of Iraq."
"a shameless, unprincipled pragmatism which seeks the best solution for each particular situation is often the best course in politics"

It's very clear to a great many observers at this time -- even ones who were vociferous supporters of the war two years ago -- that our current Iraq policy is both unpragmatic and unprincipled at the same time; and that we cannot do better there without devoting a great deal more resources than we are currently willing to do (including, surely, a draft); and so, if we cannot do better there, we are better off -- both pragmatically and as a matter of principle -- just getting the hell out already. There are perhaps some bona-fide isolationists out there, but I suspect you'll find more of them on the political right (with the Buchananites, etc.) than on the left. So you not only need to disentangle "left" from "liberal", but also "isolationist" from "supports withdrawl from Iraq".