That Kos post is good stuff. The most interesting and amusing part is how effortlessly Kos assumes that opposition to Kos is automatic and irrefutable proof of being “rightwing.” I find this fascinating because this is something I’ve been studying for the last couple years. The left has always worked from the assumption that the left is the measure of moral authority in politics. Now, you could certainly argue that the right is guilty of something similar, and you’d be right in many cases. But it’s more rare for a conservative to disagree with or even hate another conservative and make that all the proof required to declare him a leftwinger. In the 1930s, the proof you were a rightwinger was opposition to Roosevelt or to Communism — or both. That’s it. It didn’t matter what ideas you held, what policies you preferred. For decades, Communists defined anything in opposition to Stalinism, including Trotyskyism as “fascist.” According to Kos, criticizing or inconveniencing his “people-powered movement” [shudder] is objective proof that The New Republic is not only “rightwing” but actually part of the “rightwing conspiracy.” The quintessential leftist slogan is “if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.” And the problem is always called “rightwing.”