Defining "Ironic"

Time to take potshots at couple blogs I usualy agree with, but they have just become ridiculous in their criticism of a Ted Rall column last week, "CANCEL THE PRIMARIES." In one paragraph, digby puts on his best sarcastic tone to tell us that not only is Ted Rall worse than Bush, but he's lower than Saddam, too:

Cancelling elections to save money and send a message of unity is such a good idea. But, you know, it might be better to utton-bay your ips-lay lest the GOP get the same idea about the general election. Course, it's pretty hard to pull that off. Even Saddam had to at least stage elections in order to pretend to have some democratic legitimacy. Maybe we could get Diebold to rig one of those on-line polls for us. That would save money AND allow us to argue that we shouldn't cancel elections as a matter of principle.

I think should point out the humor that this criticism comes despite a plea to the left from Rall in the final paragraph in his column:

Rumor has it that Ralph Nader, whom I respect deeply as a man of integrity and intelligence and for whom I voted in 1996 and 2000, is mulling over another run. Nader should take a pass this time. Just this once, let's pull the left together. We can go back to tearing each other apart in December '04. I promise.

"We can go back to tearing each other apart in December '04. I promise." It would seem that December is much too long of a wait for digby and Thumb, subbing for Atrios over at Eschaton, who wasn't as direct in his criticism of Rall.

While both bloggers took potshots at Rall for his column, neither blogger actually got to discussing the main issue that Rall brought up, which is unity. In other words, while digby was busy painting Rall's tactics as being uber-Republican and worse then Saddam, he commits the cardinal sin that we constantly scream at Republicans for: Insulting somebody and dismissing them as stupid without engaging them in the points of their argument.

Looking over dibgy's bitch against Rall, it looks like he ripped a page right out of the Republican guide to debating, because he never addresses the main issue of Rall's column: unity amongst Democrats against Bush.

Digby and Thumb have every right to insult Ted Rall if they so wish, but they have presented their arguments in an ugly fashion that I would expect from the right, not from people on the left who are supposed to be reasonable.