As I mentioned yesterday, Matt Stoller of OpenLeft.com is one of the leading lights of the progressive blogosphere. It is thus with a measure of sadness that I must make note of a post Stoller made this morning. Under the headline “Is the Bush Administration Going After Eliot Spitzer?,” Stoller darkly notes, “Spitzer is clearly one figure willing to stand up to Bush.” I have to confess to feeling disappointed, nay outraged, by this ludicrous post. This is worst than “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” redux. It confirms the nagging fear that even the most intelligent progressives see the boogieman Bush hiding in virtually every closet. As intimated, I can’t help but take this post personally. Part of my job at the Weekly Standard is to satirize and parody the excesses of the angry left. How am I supposed to satirize these people if they’re determined to so thoroughly satirize themselves? A crusading career prosecutor who ostentatiously railed against prostitution rings in the past gets caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and the left wing blogosphere instinctively gets angry with Bush. You couldn’t make such things up.
