BURN: Someone Needs To Help Charles Blow

Charles Blow needs an intervention, and deep therapy.  Nobody edits the stuff NYT opinionestas write...we all know that.  But, really, they should at least read their own stuff and see if it embarrasses them a few hours after they write it.  In Blow's case, it is beyond self-help; he needs a professional.

Consider a "thought" like this--

For example, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey released this week found that a majority of Americans supported Arizona’s hostile new immigration law, even as most allowed that the law is likely to lead to more discrimination against legal immigrants. Apparently, for some, there is an acceptable level of collateral damage.

I mean, did the man read that back to himself before pressing the "send" button?  Yes, Charles, the American people want their laws enforced, their borders secured.  And yes, Charles, we care about civil liberties, and we know that ALWAYS there is a tension between liberty and effective police policy.  But, also, Charles, we understand there is sometimes greater danger in inertia...for all concerned.  Collateral damage happens when you sit on your butt, too.

What kind of discrimination are we afraid of for legal immigrants?  That they will have to provide documents to police if they are stopped for a traffic offense?  They do that now, and so do we all.  That they will be stopped, willy-nilly, by our jack-booted thugs wearing badges?  There isn't the remotest evidence of that, and it defies the reality of police work in the United States.  Generally, our cops have plenty to do.  But are we alert to possibilities?  Yeah, we are.
 
But not in Blow-world.  In Blow-world, Charles is having a lot of trouble getting his arms around reality.  He simply cannot believe that Americans are "unconscionably" tilting more and more conservative...as their government shows greater and greater talent for marching us all off a cliff by stubbornly insisting on collectivism.

Charles is having trouble, because Americans would be comfortable with another conservative on the Supreme Court, are not comfortable with abortion on demand, are comfortable with oil exploration, do support controlling who enters our nation, and enforcing our laws, and really are not sanguine about collectivism.

This string of bad news has only compounded an already palpable sense of loss and longing on the left, an enveloping fear of the inevitable: rejection. The right, and most importantly, the middle, unnerved by spending in a recession and unhinged by Obama in the White House, have not bought into the liberal vision of a new America. In fact, they’re increasingly weary of it, if not hostile to it.

And there, America, is Blow-world's rationale for your "unconscionable" apostasy from the one true way of Big Government collectivism...his "liberal vision of a new America".  You are "unnerved" and "unhinged" because Obama (who is post-racial, BTW) is in the White House.  OMG, a black man in the White House!!!  Never mind that you put him there.  Now you are UNHINGED, and it has NOTHING to do with Obama's performance or policies.  See? 

I am convinced that the right may win the day, but the left will win the age. That’s because the right is running an intellectually bereft campaign of desperation and disenchantment, amplified by a recession.
    Great Recessions don’t last. Great ideas do.

Hmm...  Charles starts his piece off with a sob about how "left" is, like, a four-letter word.  Conservatives have no trouble with our brand, Charles.  The left...the collective...can't call itself what it is.  "Liberal" is a term you guys run from, "progressive" will be soon.  You have a rolling cat-fit if someone correctly calls Obama a socialist, or his economics fascist.  "Great ideas" don't have to be constantly re-branded, or lied about.

"Great Recessions don't last", Blow assures us.  Well, that remains to be seen, but it is likely true.  But a Great Receding, which your team seems hell-bent on forcing America into...that could very well be forever.