A Fine Take-down Of The "No Labels" Movement

I've followed just above the radar horizon this growing little movement associated with one-time darling of the right David Frum known as the "No-Labels" movement.  Essentially, this self-righteous group of folks (can a group be self-righteous?  But I digress...) seeks to have the rest of us put aside our petty differences and join them on the rhetorical and political high ground.  Presumably, once there, a promised-land of comity will underpin "the national conversation" and result in more enlightened discourse--and therefore--policy.

Here's a wonderful take-down of that Utopian (and perhaps deleterious) goal.  The line I like the best:

The problem with the No Labels idea is that it amounts to defining "reasonableness" as something between center-leftism and centrism and then declaring everyone else out of bounds. That's not especially useful. For one thing, fringe ideas don't always stay in the fringe as societies evolve...

This really nails my criticism of these folks who espouse the "why can't we all just get along" way of politics.  The "way" generally means "their way" and it usually consists of a small slice of the political spectrum that tends all the way from the center to left center.  Who is the mythical God-head of this kind of thinking?  Why, Jon Stewart, of course.  It's what his entire show, his entire thing on the Mall, is about.  We--the enlightened--will sit atop our mountain of comity, intelligence, bonhomie and consensus--while you unwashed rubes fight battles we find irrelevant to the "good" of the country.  We gather in our salons to worship centrism, consensus, and non-judgment--all the while rendering withering judgments upon those who see politics more as a contact sport.


No thanks.  I'll stick with my label.  The Conservative Wahoo.