Disappointed

When Christopher Buckley wrote a column for The Daily Beast explaining why he - a staunch conservative - was voting for Obama, Mister Buckley was then subjected to a torrent of angry responses from persons on the right. The vast majority of these misanthropic missives were sent to conservative publication The National Review, for which Buckley has long been a writer. He then tendered his resignation to the Review, which accepted with alacrity.

Well, this week a former democratic speechwriter - Wendy Button - wrote a column of her own for The Daily Beast explaining why she's voting for McCain. Evidently she's now been subjected to a similar inundation of not-nice notes, this time originating from persons on the left.

Really, they were another mass of misanthropic missives - threatening her dog, in some cases, (does that make them mis-canine-ic?) according to a column she's now written in response.

This is disappointing. Not surprising, but disappointing.

I've recently been commenting about how much crazy people scare me, and I'm disappointed to be forced to admit that there are most likely just as many crazy people on the left as there are on the right. Somehow I often fool myself into thinking that people who agree with my positions on various issues are good, right-thinking (or left-thinking) people like myself who are of the live and let live / agree to disagree (but hopefully we can outvote you) sort.

Not so.

Oh well. I'll shelve my disappointment for now and take this as an opportunity to point interested parties from all across the political spectrum to check out The Daily Beast which is, among other things, the new home of regular columns from Christopher Buckley.

They're an eclectic lot at The Daily Beast. A full list of contributors would be lengthy, but a few names from all over the political map leap out at me, including Tucker Carlson, Melissa Etheridge, Colin Powell, and Cindy Sheehan.

I've also added The Daily Beast to the list on the right of Things I Check Daily. Enjoy.