Here’s a query I got recently and thought was worth responding to:

Mr. Yglesias:

I’d like to make a suggestion: You have a lot of insightful and important things to say. Do you think it’s constructive to engage in as much snark as you do? It seems to me like it serves to rile up people who are on your ideological side, and I suppose I could see some constructive purpose in doing that. But I would suggest we’d all be better off if political discourse was based more on humane and rational conversation and a shared commitment to building consensus about justice and finding the truth. I see your point that the right often represents entrenched power, and it may be necessary to struggle against that. But what about people like me, basically of liberal sympathies but not allied to the left per se, who are turned off by this tone of discourse? What about thoughtful and humane conservatives that might actually be convinced to change their policy positions? I guess it seems to me like your considerable talents and moral decency might be better served in a more consensus building, persuading, and a less base-riling, partisan role. I’ll keep reading your blog, but the bitterness will often leave me a bit sad, and thinking you could be doing better.

For one thing, I think this message reflects a widespread confusion about what it is to be “partisan.” Find me someone who thinks Olympia Snowe is history’s greatest monster but Ben Nelson is a great man and I’ll show you a partisan. I’m just someone with political views that are more liberal than the views of most Americans.

As for the rest, I think humane and rational conversation is important and I like to think that plenty of the posts on this blog are dedicated to it. But there are also a lot of liars and idiots in the world and subjecting them to scorn and mockery is part of what you’ve got to do in life.

If you’re a connoisseur of people pointing out that Jonah Goldberg isn’t a very intelligent man while simultaneously being too polite to come out and say so directly, I’d highly recommend this post from Conor Friedersdorf.

One thread of the argument I’m personally interested in, however, is Goldberg’s apparent belief that it’s somehow extremely difficult for a young conservative with orthodox views “to break-in at places like NR, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal, etc.” One could be snide and observe that the very fact that Jonah Goldberg (!) was able to break into those venues is indication enough that it’s in fact quite easy, but to be fair to other National Review writers when you’re talking about a case that extreme you actually do need a boost from nepotism.

At any rate, it’s a couple of years old but I think this Julian Sanchez post has the correct take on this issue. For those who don’t know him, Julian’s a libertarian who’s worked at Reason and Cato but mostly focuses on liberal-friendly issues (surveillance, etc.) so he combines real familiarity with the right-of-center institutional nexus with substantial social and psychological distance from it. And as he wrote:

If you’re willing to toe a straight party line, on the other hand, let’s face it, you can be pretty damn mediocre and still carve out a nice little niche for yourself at any one of a welter of generously funded ideological publications and think tanks. Sure, it’s a smaller pond, but you get to be a relatively big fish. You’ll always have a book deal waiting at Regnery, a warm guest chair on Fox, editors at NR and the Weekly Standard eager to look at your pitches, handsome honoraria on your speaking tour of College Republican groups, and in your golden years, an undemanding sinecure as the Senior Olin Fellow at the Institute for Real ‘Murriken Studies.

This is both a cost and a benefit of the fact that the conservative movement has built an enormous institutional apparatus. There’s this nice, very cushy gravy train out there awaiting anyone who wants to be a loyal footsoldier and one consequence of that is that the standards in terms of the personnel are quite low.

I’m no longer in the state of Ackerman-esque outraged shock about the meal we had last night at Star & Shamrock, a new Irish/Jewish fusion tavern/deli concept in Washington DC. I’ll just say this. If you live the neighborhood and are looking for a place to grab a drink and watch the game while being serenaded by a profoundly sucky musician, this spot may be great. But if you’re intrigued by their innovative take on Jewish deli food, then stay away. Far away.

Beyond that, let me just note that people really ought to warn you if their cole slaw (or anything else) comes unexpectedly doused in dill. People: Dill is gross.

Seems to be no love lost between these two New York politicians: “In an unusually candid and sometimes biting assessment of his successor as attorney general, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer portrayed Andrew M. Cuomo as a man whose decisions have often been driven by political considerations and whose worldview has largely been shaped by the culture of Albany.”

Accusing a politician of being driven by political considerations is one of the funniest charges you can throw around in the political world. The funny thing is that the conventional wisdom manages to simultaneously hold in disdain politicians whose decision-making is driven by politics and politicians who lack savvy and end up out of step with their constituents. You’re somehow supposed to be totally unconcerned with politics, but also display a brilliant command of political tactics. It’s deeply silly.

Henry Farrell got his hands on a copy of Princeton Readings in American Politics: “I presume the core audience for the book is upper level undergraduate courses. I have to say that it also looks like an excellent resource for journalists and others who are interested in a one-stop ‘Everything You Want to Know About Americanist Political Science but Were Afraid to Ask’ collection.”

I have the book, and didn’t know I was interested in such a collection until I got my copy. But he’s right—it’s an extremely useful American Politics 101 (or maybe more like 201) that in a decent world would be read by the large number of political junkies and political professionals who don’t have much exposure to the formal study of US politics.