Jurassic Left

Victor Davis Hanson writes, “the problem with our Left is what killed the dinosaurs: a desire to plod on to oblivion in a rapidly evolving world”. He’s got some excellent suggestions that would bring them somewhere towards the middle–if they’re willing to listen.

Meanwhile, back from Christmas vacation, James Taranto has a prediction:

There was indeed a heightened intensity to the Bush hatred just after the election, but it lasted maybe three days. It calls to mind the Helix Nebula: “The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic that it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce.” In other words, the Angry Left was flaming out.

Think about it. Michael Moore is now making a documentary about insurance (it’ll be a blockbuster for sure). Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman has gone off to read an economics textbook. George Soros is nowhere to be found; for all we know he actually did join a monastery. And of course Susan Sontag has gone to the Great Cocktail Party Up in the Sky.

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It’s hard to believe now how fearsome the Angry Left once seemed. This column never thought it was the stuff of a winning political campaign, but sometimes we felt as though our skepticism put us in the minority. We’re sure we’ll continue to hear from the Dowds and the Krugmans and maybe even the Moores and the Soroses; not even the fascist Bush regime can silence them. But the Angry Left will loom much smaller in 2005 than it has in many years.

We’ll see.