Because I know it’s too dangerous to get your information from one source (or even multiple sources, if they’re all on the same general end of the political spectrum), I decided to read what other people had to say about Tammy Bruce today. What I found shocked me.

I found, as I expected, a lot of websites maintained by people who didn’t like Ms. Bruce, but several of these had attacks that had nothing to do with her political views. For example, one included, in its criticisms that she “wasn’t easy to look at.” Nevermind that every picture I’ve seen of her shows that she’s not in the least unattractive, the comment has nothing to do with her arguments.

After I considered it a bit more, though, I realized that it shouldn’t shock me. I wish I could say it only happened on “that” side of the fence, but look at the name of the new Anti-Michael Moore book: Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, by David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke. Michael Moore disgusts me for his politics and his tendency to twist the truth to make it completely unrecognizable. Hardy and Clarke maintain anti-Moore websites, both of which I’ve read and enjoyed. So, if they have the material to attack Moore’s work and not Moore himself, why bother with the stupid title (I realize it’s a play on his Stupid White Men title, but if nothing else, did they not ask why they must stoop to his level?

How many times have you heard Bush’s policies attacked without someone making a snide comment that he’s stupid? How often have you heard his policies defended without someone being called unpatriotic, or even “evil”?

The truth is, two intelligent people can look at the same facts and come up with entirely different conclusions on a lot of topics. Why? Because these things are complex, a lot more so than a lot of the pundits of the day would have you believe.

We should strive to keep political discussions out of the gutter — these topics are important, and to allow ourselves to be dragged into a mud slinging match (or, worse, to dive headlong into a mud slinging match willingly) is just disgusting. We should know better.
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