Hateful Harridan Rants Against Reasoned Republicans

The Left, Online and Outraged
Liberal Blogger Finds an Outlet and a Community

By David Finkel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 15, 2006; Page A01

SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. -- In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.

Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O'Connor's reputation is as one of the angriest of all. "One long, sustained scream" is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.

She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers "malevolent," a "sociopath" and "the Antichrist"? She smokes another cigarette. Should it be about Vice President Cheney, whom she thinks of as "Satan," or about Karl Rove, "the devil"? Should it be about the "evil" Republican Party, or the "weaselly, capitulating, self-aggrandizing, self-serving" Democrats, or the Catholic Church, for which she says "I have a special place in my heart . . . a burning, sizzling, putrescent place where the guilty suffer the tortures of the damned"?

Darfur, she finally decides. She will write about Darfur. The shame of it. The culpability of all Americans, including herself, for doing nothing. She will write something so filled with outrage that it will accomplish the one thing above all she wants from her anger: to have an effect.

"Darfur is not hopeless," she begins typing, and pauses.

"Ugh," she says.

"You are not helpless," she continues typing, and pauses again.

"Weak."

She deletes everything and starts over.

"WAKE THE [expletive] UP," she writes next, and this time, instead of pausing, she keeps going, typing harder and harder on a keyboard that is surrounded by a pack of cigarettes, a dirty ashtray, a can of nonalcoholic beer, an album with photos of her dead father and a taped-up note -- staring at her -- on which she has scrawled "Why am I/you here?"

Outspoken and Uncensored

These are mean times.

"I just want to see these [expletive] swinging from their heels in the public square," reads a recent comment from someone named Dave in a discussion about the Bush administration on a Web site called Eschaton.

It's ovbvious Mr. Finkle is infatuated with this shrill Harridan of Hatred. Mr. Finkel, you state:

"Not that long ago, it was the right that was angry and the left that was, at least comparatively, polite. But after years of being the targets of inflammatory rhetoric, not only from fringe groups but also from such mainstream conservative politicians as Newt Gingrich, the left has gone on the attack. And with Republicans in control of Washington, they have much more to be angry about."

In one sense you are correct, Conservatives were angry with the policies of President Clinton and the cavalier attitude with which he treated his entrusted Office, but we rarely resorted to the kind of vile, hatefilled, invective that these Liberals routinely engage in.

The level of hatred and the lack of reasoned argument is what differs the modern Leftist blogger from those of us on the Right and those who in the past, like Gingrich and Limbaugh, called the Left into question. I defy any Liberal to show a single instance of Mr. Gingrich or Mr. Limbaugh using the kind of hateful language that these people use. I also defy you to explain how "they have much more to be angry about" with Republicans in power, than did Republicans after forty years of Liberal Democrat dominance of the government.

Don't worry though Mr. Finkel, your report is typical of the kind of biased "journalism" I have come to expect from the Washington Post. Small wonder you are losing readership and going slowly bankrupt, your paper has no credibility anymore.

As for Mrs. O'Connor, her self-indulgent obsession with hatred of President Bush and the Republicans is a pitiable state of existence (and indicative of an alcoholic personality trait known as a "dry drunk"). How sad that someone has to live consumed by anger and hatred. How sad that she has chosen to spread hatred and emotion rather than reason and logic. Emotion is a poor substitute for convincing argument based on reason. Really Mrs. O'Connor, if you must resort to obscenities and hateful invective, your arguments must be very weak.

Full Story: Living on Hatred and Cigarettes

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