The Defector

Is there any blogger who has had a more extreme makeover during the last few years than John Cole? Read this post and then recall that up until recently, Cole probably would have called himself a Republican (albeit a moderate one). He voted for Bush in 2004. And now listen to him. He makes me look tame.

One thing that the media has never quite grasped when writing about the "angry" left blogosphere is that a great many of us didn't start off angry, or even all that far left, and only became so when pushed by innumerable prevarications and provocations by the Bush administration. Even back in my pro-war days, I recognized the degree to which erstwhile moderates had grown furious with the way a far-right President with no principles and no respect for alternative views was running the nation into the ground. It's not like Cole is an outlier here. Andrew Sullivan and Daniel Drezner are other Republicans who turned against the administration, and hard. Kevin Drum would have been considered "center-left" once upon a time, and TNR's Jonathan Chait, he who wrote a two-part series on his hatred of Bush, is probably still considered center-left. Even the all-powerful Kos is a former GOPer. The left-wing bloggers are made, not born fellas. And we're made not because we've got a mental imbalance. It's a reaction to particular policies and particular attitudes by a particular administration that makes good people of all political persuasions justifiably angry.