Liberals are (and Should be) Embarrassed to Identify Themselves as Such

Polls show that people generally avoid the label "liberal." For example, exit polls in the recent presidential election -- one in which an apparently liberal candidate won handily -- suggested that whereas 34% identify themselves as conservative, only 22% identify themselves as liberal. Why would that be even during a tidal wave of support for Democrats? I think it's because liberals are so often proudly pathetic:

An Honor That Bush Is Unlikely to Embrace

By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: June 25, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the capital (and a state, too). But President Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can contribute to from the bathroom.

From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

I believe this initiative lost. Yesterday, we had this:

White House nixes impeachment ornament

Seattle ornament is only one of 370 for White House tree that is rejected

WASHINGTON - The White House won't display a Christmas tree ornament that calls for President Bush's impeachment.

The ornament was made by Seattle artist Deborah Lawrence, who says she wanted to honor Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., a longtime Bush foe who backs impeachment.

And then there was Moveon.org, weighing in like village idiots with this full-page ad in the New York Times back in September 2007 (when General Petraeus was about to give his key testimony to Congress):


If you feel a thrill running up your leg in response to antics like these, then you should consider yourself a liberal (and, in terms of intellectual development, barely a juvenile). No wonder people are embarrassed to self-identify as "liberal."

Speaking of thrills running up legs, I wonder how Chris Matthews feels about Barack Obama now that he has chosen clear-thinking hawks like Robert Gates and Marine General James Jones for his national security team? Just thinking about it, I'm starting to feel a thrill run up my leg...