As Bush has scr*wed the country, the media spent years quite happily going along with the GOP theme of 'opposition = treason'. The allegedly liberal media did not lead opposition to the war, or to Bush - it followed the American people.

While the left still dominated academe and the most influential newspapers, they couldn’t command an audience anymore.

If the author can't tell the difference between the Times and The Nation, I'd question his intelligence.

The more reasonable interpretation is that the distinction between The Nation and the Times is elided to score political points ('no one will buy what the left is selling!' being the implication of the passage above). And that's not surprising; this is a good conservative blog, but conservative nonethless.

The left sees these policies as actively endangering the existence of this nation that - believe it or not! - liberals love too.

I'd take it a little farther in that the Left has a different vision for America. On foreign policy for example they want American force only to be used with permission from other nations through organizations like the U.N. Requiring France's permission to do anything is absurd if you're the leader of the free world.

The Left objects to the Bush/Cheney policies.

I'd say it a bit more strongly than that, though. The left sees these policies as actively endangering the existence of this nation that - believe it or not! - liberals love too. The hard-right religious base's efforts to unify church & state, the replacement of scientific evidence & experiment with dogma & evangelical teachings, the placement of party politics above any other concern, including basic national security, the entire concept of a 'permanent majority party', the list goes on and on.

The derision and insult level is further enhanced by the right's reflection of Bush's own personality & management philosophy - he & the GOP actively define themselves, not just as Americans, but as capital-A AMERICA. It's in all the rhetoric - if you don't support with Bush, you don't support America, if you work against the Republicans, you're working against America, if you're not out beating the drums for the nearest GOP candidate, you must be supporting the terrorists, etc.

It isn't so much that I don't understand what he means, it is that I have found, for years, that his style of bloggging sophomoric. I was actually extremely surprised when I learned that he had a Ph.D. in economics. It read to me like a bright college kid who still thought that ranting was a form of argumentation.

It isn't that I can't take a little ranting, and I read some blogs that are hardly paragons of rhetorical virtue. Still, I don't find Black's style to be especially impressive or useful and think that, on balance, it appeals to our baser instincts (like many blogs do, both left and right) rather than actually being enlightening.

Of course, on balance it is the blogs that engage in confrontation politics that get the most traffic, so clearly I am not in the majority in my views.

For what it is worth, I stopped listening to Rush Limbaugh (and partisan talk radio in general) years ago because I got sick of everything being about scoring political points and ranting/emotion masquerading as analysis and thinking.

I disagree strongly. I read FreeRepulic throughout the Clinton years -- it was far more personal than policy-based. The entire notion that Clinton was a liberal Democrat was personal, not policy.

I kid because I care.

Then again, we are talking about someone who seems to think that labeling people a "wanker" is analysis and/or humor.

I don't think it's quite this simple. Here's my take:

Black has done a lot of analysis over the years. Those of us that read him regularly think we understand the point he is making when he labels someone a 'wanker'. He doesn't even have to be explicit about the analysis since it is so obvious. If he did analyze every situation he posts about, he would end up repeating himself since he has analyzed many similar situations in the past.

The choice of the word 'wanker' is unimportant, any sarcastic or slightly derogatory word would do as well.

I'm not sure what the closest analogy on the right would be? Maybe Instapundit and his "heh" and "indeeds" or whatever he says these days?

No doubt. But it's clearly much more personal than that--even moreso than the Right's animus toward Bill Clinton. Indeed, even before the flap over the 2000 recount, there was a personal dislike of Bush and Cheney.

Douthat is right that much of the netroots is fueled by anti-Bush-Cheney rage.

This framing always bothers me. I read it as implying a mindless anger against Bush/Cheney on a personal level. Am I reading too much into your phrasing? If so, I apologize.

The Left objects to the Bush/Cheney policies.

Anytime the Left says something disparaging about Bush/Cheney personally, they are playing into the Right's hands by allowing the Right to dismiss the Left's arguments with their cute phrases like "BDS".