Monday, July 05, 2010

Grown-Up Party of the Center

Michael Gerson has an op-ed in the Washington Post contrasting the Ugly Party - from both ends of the political spectrum - with the Grown-Up Party. He does not place the Grown-Up Party, but from his examples it seems to me to be clearly in the center.

In his criticism of the Ugly Party way of talking he has a lovely quote from John Avlon:

If you only take offense when the president of your party is compared to Hitler, you are part of the problem.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could not agree more, but did a search and could not find the Ann Coulter quote.

Anonymous said...

I don't think the Grown-up Party is necessarily centrist. By the author's description, a person with any type of political beliefs could be part of this "Grown-up Party" as long as their words and actions are not incendiary, hyperbolic, and intended solely to rile up the listener. There are certainly far left and far right followers who are capable of polite and meaningful discourse. (Although I'm using "far left" and "far right" in a very American mainstream way, as most Americans expressing viewpoints are somewhat towards the center of the world-wide political spectrum.)

And, first anon, I agree that it's bad practice to quote something someone "once said" without reference to specifics. However, the reference here seems to be an interview in the New York Observer, August 20, 2002.

Gruntled said...

I quite agree that civility can - and should - be practiced all along the ideological spectrum. I think Gerson's particular examples of members of the Grown-Up Party are centrists. I also think that centrists are more obliged to be civil, just because we are promoting a common-ground view of ideological differences.