A well written piece which both sides will pillory. So you've probably got it close to right.

Well Cathy I hope this rant makes you feel better. However nowhere did you present any convincing evidence that these serious issues do not exist. Like most Libertarians you live in a parallel universe. So if you rag on without proof, you can be dismissed without proof. The actual operation of people's lives is not about dogma. If solutions are to be sought to improve living conditions it must be clear what problems exist. The so called pseudo facts all represent real concerns and because the numbers can be jiggled, again without proof, in your favor you stamp people whether liberal or not who seek positive change for people's good with the madness and intolerance of people like Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachman, Peter King, Dick Cheney, George W Bush, Eric Cantor, John Bolton, Hayley Barbour, and Sean Hannity to name a few. Perhaps at times liberals can be impractical but they certainly do not have the dangerous streak of their reactionary counterparts.

Ms. Young, another good example you could have used would be the left's unhinged response to Pres. Bush's counter-terrorism policies. Go back and look at all the things they were saying about the "Bush/Cheney Regime shredding the Constitution." And then, once the people making these claims were given a complete political monopoly in 2009 they . . . endorsed every single one of the Bush Administration's policies. Every single one. But, oh my, to hear them rant back in the day. And then once in power . . . never mind.

Excellent reflection on some of the problems with the public conversation. There are two angles to this issue which I would add. First, one variety of the problems noted, such as with Dowd, is at least in part a function of the writer being infatuated with their own prose. People, in comments sections as well as published pieces, seem to pride themselves on metaphors and turns of the phrase which are colorful to the point of distorting the reality. And second point relates to the the alignment of opinion. The primary unrecognized battle is not between the right and the left. Rather it is between a balanced middle perspective and the extremes on either side.

I found your piece unconvincing and forced. I don't deny that exaggeration and misrepresentation occur on the left, but your examples are weak, as is your premise.

No time to write much now -will chime in later but would mention that RealClearPolitics is now controlled by Steve Forbes who is on the board of directors at Freedomworks and is also a member of the board of trustees of the Heritage Foundation. Just to help you make up your own mind about the author's middle-ground bona fides.

"As someone whose views are a mix of "conservative" and "liberal,"" Cathy sounds like a conservative to me. She forgot to mention the conservatives who believe that the destruction of the towers in New York on 9/11 was part of a government plot or that the shootings in Aurora, CO didn't really happen - they were part of a mysterious United Nations plan to take guns away from American citizens. As for me, I abide by the saying of Groucho Marx "who are you going to believe, me, or your own eyes?"

Not really. What evidence did this author present that liberals support harmful causes. Also can anyone name any elected liberal official whose politics carries the same harm as those on the right. The author is an immigrant to this country and received her education at a public university, Rutgers in NJ. Her very life story is an antithesis to what she espouses. Without doubt her ambitions propelled her career but it was with considerable help from her fellow citizens and its public institutions.

Well done Cathy, as a "liberal conservative" myself, whatever that means, there needs to be a fundamental change in the way Americans view issues. Why must we always see things in a Liberal VS Conservative context? It's exactly why we see gridlock and not progress.

Well done Cathy, as a "liberal conservative" myself, whatever that means, there needs to be a fundamental change in the way Americans view issues. Why must we always see things in a Liberal VS Conservative context? It's exactly why we see gridlock and not progress.

This piece is a great example of the meaningless of branding people leftist or rightist. If we represented ideology in the US with a continuum line and place different stands as described in this article along the continuum, they would all be "rightist" positions. There's no classical "left" in this country. The two main US political parties, for instance, adhere to capitalism; their stands simply represent different degrees of "rightist" values. This piece also alludes to a tradition in the US of using these terms to describe how people think (ideological discourse) and not what they actually think (ideological content).

Liberals seem to me to be less inclined to deliberately lie, but may be mistaken in their assumptions. Adlai Stevenson is purported to have said during his presidential run against Eisenhower, " If you will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about Republicans." This was mere rhetoric, but it does seem to point out the differences in campaigning in the current election. It would be interesting to see if the radical right can make its case without prevarications.

Really? None of those people espoused policies that are dangerous. Some broke the law but that belongs to individual matters not government. You can't even make a straight argument. I am willing to discuss but put a lid on the very poor and out of context analogies.

We are talking public policy not the misdeeds of individuals. I don't think you want to make this a peeing contest on where the most criminals stand. Your analogies are poor and out of context. What dangerous government policies did any of the people you cited espouse? I'll answer for you--none.

Once again Cathy Young deftly uses half of the truth to make her point, "The figure refers to all full-time workers; when such factors as occupation, training and experience are included, studies show, the gap shrinks to five cents on the dollar--arguably cause for concern, but a far cry from 23 cents." Where does Cathy Young thing the discrimination exists but in the training and the experience and the available occupations? Honestly!

Nicely done, Cathy. Of course, most of the liberals who post here will deny that they are anything but intellectually and morally superior beings.

First off, interesting that all your "examples" to rebut OETKB are black. Before you explode with righteous indignation, I will stipulate that it is a coincidence and not an indication of racism. Here are some other names: DeLay, Stevens, Vitter, Ensign, Libby, Craig. Sleaziness is particular to no ideology (or race).