We've had a big spike in traffic lately, and much of that traffic is coming from search engines. Because of that, I think, we've had more liberal visitors to the site. That's fine with us. James and I have even talked about finding a liberal blogger who might want to occasionally post here (and vice versa). I'm not interested in "converting" liberals, but I would be interested in having reasonable debates. The problem is that with too many liberals, particularly online, a reasoned debate suddenly turns into this: "Bush=Hitler", "Halliburton!!", "Repugnicans hate the poor". And I'm not interested in playing that game anymore.

A couple of liberal sites have linked to James' post on class action lawsuits. While it's nice that they found something they think they agree with, there's a few issues I can't get past:

• They wrongly assumed that James' post was "anti-Bush"
• Their posts have titles like Right wingers aren't always stupid" or "Even the wingnuts are troubled by the bill to restrict class action lawsuits."
• Finally, even if James' post was a criticism of the Bush policy, that's not good enough for these liberals. Both of the posts above seem to think that if you disagree with Bush on one issue it's just the tip of the iceberg and you'll soon fall into step with your liberal betters. Norwegianity says, "The Bushies will fall from within as more and more “real” conservatives wake up to this massive power grab." while Dadahead writes that "Now, if only James would recognize that giving corporations license to rip off consumers without fear of reprisal is the essence of the GOP agenda!"

After the election, we heard so much about how liberals and conservatives needed to find common ground and work together. I've found that many conservatives, whether they voted for Bush or not, disagree with the adminstration on some issues, but find other areas where they stand behind him. Is there any such phenomenon among liberals? For them it seems like everything Bush touches turns to pure evil. There's no room for a middle ground or for the moderates who would happily inhabit it. Madison's favorite moderate, Ann Althouse, has blogged on this topic before:

I'm just saying that I'm struck by the way the right perceives me as a potential ally and uses positive reinforcement and the left doesn't see me as anything but an opponent -- doesn't even try to engage me with reasoned argument. Maybe the left feels beleaguered these days, but how do they expect to make any progress if they don't see the ways they can include the people in the middle? If you look around and only see opponents and curl up with your little group of insiders, you are putting your efforts into insuring that you remain a political minority.

In the last few weeks, I've written about how important I think it is to not get caught up in this black & white/pro-Bush or anti-Bush world. Neither the far left nor the far right has all the answers, so how will we ever get anywhere if we're unwilling to explore the middle?