Polite? Us?
2015-01-28 - by
Things have come to a pretty pass when a photo and story about Carter and me run under the headline: “Polite Disagreement.”
This is our reward? After all we did to make Hunt-Helms one of the most bitter, negative and expensive races ever? After years, decades even, of earning reputations as tough, give-no-quarter political gut-fighters?
After all that, Kate Grice writes an article in The Daily Tar Heel (“Two political analysts find friendship in debate”) that concludes, “Though the two disagree on basically everything, as they are glad to point out to one another with a smile and a laugh, their blog and panel talks have made them an example of old-style debates that are often lost in the world of the internet.”
What are we – a couple of toothless, burned-out old softies?
Maybe we have changed. Maybe years of blogging together and talking to each other softened us.
Maybe we came to realize that, in what Carter calls the “howl” of today’s politics, cooler and calmer voices get heard more clearly.
Or maybe it’s a sign of just how bitter, angry and divided – personal, even – politics has become in the age of Fox, MSNBC and the Internet. When you’re talking only to the people who agree with you, it’s tempting to play to the crowd and preen in the roar of their approval.
Maybe we stand out a bit because we’re forced to consider the other guy’s point of view and even occasionally grant that something he says make sense.
Carter put it well in our DTH interview, “We argue without hostility, and I think that is something that people find interesting. There’s disagreement, but it’s polite.”
Posted in General
Polite? Us?
2015-01-28/
Things have come to a pretty pass when a photo and story about Carter and me run under the headline: “Polite Disagreement.”
This is our reward? After all we did to make Hunt-Helms one of the most bitter, negative and expensive races ever? After years, decades even, of earning reputations as tough, give-no-quarter political gut-fighters?
After all that, Kate Grice writes an article in The Daily Tar Heel (“Two political analysts find friendship in debate”) that concludes, “Though the two disagree on basically everything, as they are glad to point out to one another with a smile and a laugh, their blog and panel talks have made them an example of old-style debates that are often lost in the world of the internet.”
What are we – a couple of toothless, burned-out old softies?
Maybe we have changed. Maybe years of blogging together and talking to each other softened us.
Maybe we came to realize that, in what Carter calls the “howl” of today’s politics, cooler and calmer voices get heard more clearly.
Or maybe it’s a sign of just how bitter, angry and divided – personal, even – politics has become in the age of Fox, MSNBC and the Internet. When you’re talking only to the people who agree with you, it’s tempting to play to the crowd and preen in the roar of their approval.
Maybe we stand out a bit because we’re forced to consider the other guy’s point of view and even occasionally grant that something he says make sense.
Carter put it well in our DTH interview, “We argue without hostility, and I think that is something that people find interesting. There’s disagreement, but it’s polite.”
Posted in General