I often get mass-blast email from readers who have my email in their address book. Sometimes I even end up on liberal readers’ list. I just received this:
Dear all,
Since the Palin nomination, the McCain campaign has been engaging in campaign tactics that are unprecedented for their shameless dishonesty and sleaze. The Washington Monthly website seems to me to be the best and most responsible source for commentary on the unfolding spectacle. I commend it to your attention.
I wrote back, from by blackberry thing, “unprecedented? LOL.”
To which he responded: ” Yes; unprecedented. Have a good laugh.”
Now, even if you concede every argument, every interpretation, every tendentious misreading of the political landscape in the harshest most anti-McCain way possible, even if you think Josh Marshall and Andrew Sullivan should stop pulling their punches, you still can’t get into the same zip code as “unprecedented.” To think there’s anything new going on here is to reveal that you have no idea what happened five minutes ago, historically speaking.
Anyway, I just thought it was a funny little episode, one that I think will be repeated quite a bit before we’re through.