In an email, Porphyrogenitus writes:

In any case, your responses are just further proving that you're engaging in a somewhat less overblown but hardly different in kind version of what you're decrying in du Toit.

Well, no, I *was* trying to point out that people don't buy the package, naturally, and trying to sell the whole package (as du Toit seems to do) is a self-defeating action. Fine, we disagree on judicial appointments (I'm not going to get into the he-started-it-first game - it's amazing how much Senatorial politics sometimes resembles grade school recess). That doesn't mean that we disagree on, say, restraining spending in general terms. Or gay marriage. Or this or that or the other thing. But the point is - are the dividing lines reinforcing, or countervailing? du Toit obviously thinks the dividing lines are reinforcing. I disagree.

From my point of view, the du Toits have been trying to purge the moderate and liberal Republicans for years, in a quest for doctrinal purity, under the assumption that wedge issues would eventually bring all conservatives together under the same unifying banner. Did you note his nasty comments about Chafee, Snowe, and Voinovich? Hell, Voinovich isn't even particularly moderate - he just was willing to cross Bush on taxation issues. There's the attitude, even in a nominal "open tent" invitation.

I suppose the funny thing is that du Toit argues in a centrifugal manner, with centripetal intent. I still have paradoxical hope for a pro-war Democratic alternative, but without the reality to plant a flag in, I can hardly call to rally, can I? If the crisis comes, and Dean or Clark are the banner-carriers, I've got a damn hard row to hoe.

It's not as if I've not held my nose in the booth before. I voted for Gore and Santorum in '00. I used to be a big believer in the split ticket.