"American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration," Alexander wrote.
"Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension."
The Post illustrated this remarkable attack on an entire wing of U.S political thought with photos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, comedian Jon Stewart, blogger Markos Moulitsas and President Barack Obama.
Pelosi was quoted as saying that Republican congressional "disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views but of the facts themselves." Responding to Republican criticism, Obama was quoted as saying: "That's factually just not true, and you know it's not true."
The Left's weak position in media could not have been better demonstrated than by seeing the neocon Washington Post what the Right still calls the "flagship" of the "liberal media" publishing a denunciation of liberals as "condescending" for daring to defend their proposals as anchored in facts.
Palin's Zinger
Plus, the notion that neoconservatives and right-wingers aren't condescending toward liberals and progressives is bizarre, after years and years of the Right's sneering attacks on "lib-rhul" proposals as "communist" and after neocons condemned Iraq War critics as "America haters" and "blame-America-firsters."
One only needed to listen to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's speech on Saturday night to a Tea Party convention to realize how upside-down the Post's Outlook article was. Palin's mocking of the American Left was typical of what can be heard daily across the AM radio dial, on Fox News, and from Republican politicians.
"A year later, I've got to ask the supporters of all that [Obama agenda], how is that hopey-changey stuff working out for you?" Palin said to gales of laughter.
Or you could have tuned in to the influential business channel CNBC on Monday and heard one of its top anchors, Larry Kudlow, denouncing "wacko liberal ideas."
Yet, it is the American Left that has to defend itself against the charge of "condescension" for having tried to defend its ideas by arguing that they are based on fact and reason.
There is also the inconvenient truth that the Right has operated in a fantasy policy world for several decades to the detriment of the United States and, indeed, the planet. Scientific evidence -- from evolution to climate change -- is dismissed out of hand in favor of faith-based arguments.
The same has been true of economics. George H.W. Bush once correctly described Ronald Reagan's notion that tax cuts would generate more revenue to eliminate the federal deficit as "voodoo economics." When Reaganomics was reprised by George W. Bush in the last decade, his father's assessment was confirmed once more.
The younger Bush's reckless tax cuts, combined with the bipartisan deregulation of banks and other businesses, contributed to a decade in which for the first time since the Great Depression the United States experienced zero job growth. Bush's policies also took the federal government from surpluses in Bill Clinton's last year to more than a $1 trillion deficit, while setting the stage for today's Great Recession. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Lessons from America's Lost Decade."]
Then, there were the neoconservative falsehoods about Iraq's WMD and Saddam Hussein's ties to al-Qaeda.
In 2002-03, when a few brave souls dared dispute those neocon lies, the powerful neocons questioned the patriotism and even the sanity of the dissidents. The Bush administration, aided and abetted by the Post's neocon editors, waged a years-long jihad against former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his CIA officer wife, Valerie Plame, for Wilson's criticism of Bush's case for war.
