Posted by aogWednesday, 02 May 2012 at 18:00 TrackBack Ping URL

What strikes me over and over is how parochial and incapable of self awareness the Modern American Left is. It’s not just that they can’t imagine the rule applying to them, but that the rules even could apply to them. They lack the imagination to see the world as others might see it. A few examples —

Exit question via the Washington Free Beacon’s Andrew Stiles: When O says “I assume that people meant what they said when they said it,” does that also apply to the various nonsense he spouted on the trail in 2008? Opposing the mandate, ridding his administration of lobbyists, civilian trials for terrorists, etc etc. Back before he tore up the War Powers Act, he was a pretty peace-minded guy, you know. See Peter Kirsanow’s post at the Corner for more examples. [source]

Attacking Mitt Romney because his ancestor was bigamous when Obama’s father is.

The entire “dog eating” brou-haha.

Elizabeth Warren’s magical minority status

That’s enough for now. Without regard to the validity of any of these, the common theme is that they are all politically stupid because they provide an easy way for opponents to hoist one on one’s own petard. It only makes sense if it never occurs to you that the rules you have for others can be applied to you as well. To me that captures much of the essence of MAList thought that only others may be judged, but never oneself.

I suspect this is why MALists are so uninterested in any assessments of the results of their policies. It’s not so much that they fear the policies will be undermined by evidence of the utter ineffectiveness but that it simply doesn’t occur to them that they should be subjected to such judgement. Their hearts are pure and so they are immune to the dreary reality of results.