hang a richard

By Todd Stadler · Tuesday, October 29, 2002 3:29pm

I've recently decided that I have been too left-leaning in recent days and months.

I'm not sure what triggered this realization, exactly. Maybe it was when I read Andrew Sullivan's blog and found myself full of unexplained bile ? the nerve of that guy!

While it's quite likely that I'll never agree with all of Mr. Sullivan's ideas, it was more the realization that I wasn't even considering them fully that bothered me. Why the knee-jerk reaction?

I blame this all, of course, on Mr. Bush. That, after all, is what good liberals do. The problem is that I don't want to be a good liberal.

See, back when Clinton was in power, things were good. My natural tendency towards the left was kept in check by a deep mistrust of government at the upper levels ? anyone who can get himself elected president of the United States is not a man I'll be sending money to.

So the Republicans would level their accusations at Clinton, and I'd think, "what a creep!", and the Democrats would fire back and I'd think, "yeah, I don't like them, either!".

Then I'd go off and vote for some nutty third party ? maybe a Socialist, maybe a Libertarian ? or whomever I felt like, secure in the knowledge that I was disenfranchised from the whole process, which suited me fine.

Fast forward to today, with Republicans in power all over the place (save for that one precious glimmer of gridlock in the Senate; oh, how the forthcoming elections make me tremble). My tendency to distrust the government only sends me further into the clutches of the left-wingers, and the supposed party of the Left, the Democrats.

And while being a rabid, unthinking liberal is terminally trendy right now among young, urban folks like myself, I'd like to think it doesn't look any better on me than those hip men's shoes with the thin flat toe that remind me of duck bills.

After all, I don't really like the Democrats. They're every bit as snivelly, money- and power-grubbing as the Republicans (and, I suspect as any other party would be, given such power; you know the Anti-Masonic Party would be lording it over us now if they had survived).

So I decided to seek out new sources of information in my life ? sources that would counter the overwhelmingly liberal tone found in some of my favorite news sources, such as the New York Times, Tom Tomorrow, and others.

Maybe it's just that I'm a bit out of the right-wing loop. I'm no longer on the GOP tip. But I haven't found too many sites of the conservative and intelligent persuasions.

Sure, there are the columnists I've always enjoyed, such as Michael Kelly and Charles Krauthammer.

And, begrudgingly, there is crotchety old George Will, who has his moments, such as his recent mockery of France. And I am slowly coming to admit that Andrew Sullivan has his moments.

Of course, magazines associated with the aforementioned Mssrs. Kelly and Sullivan ? The Atlantic and The New Republic are both excellent, although not so much consistently right-wing as intelligent, which is, of course, fine.

But that's pretty much all I've got. For now, it's good enough to keep my mind in check. But I welcome any further suggestions in the comments area.