Mike Totten is coming down off the fence in favor of Bush. I have to say I'm happy with that; I've been seeing too many centrists and contrarian-conservatives sliding off the fence in the opposite direction.

You see, I'm a centrist, but I've never been moderate. I'm not temperamentally suited to neutrality or even-handedness. I'm prone to take my ground, and defend it. That ground might be between two battle-lines, but it's human nature to gravitate towards the closest mass. Or at least, it's my nature.

What this means, is that I can understand why people take the opposite stand on something, but I have trouble tolerating the sail-trimmers who call themselves "neutral". It's hard for me to not see them as hypocrites and dissemblers. This is what drives me up the wall about Dan Drezner, Jeff Jarvis and Andrew Sullivan. They like to play at political strip-tease, pretending to a fake neutrality, or at least, giving a display that makes me think that they're pretending to fake neutralities.

I'm not sure whether I ought to be classing Jarvis in with the other two, though. His current obsessions are boring me to tears, so I might be doing him a dis-service. As far as I'm concerned, Howard Stern can go open a porn shop in Dubuque; I couldn't care less about Jarvis's "Daily Stern" routine; likewise, I am deeply irritated by "Issues!" posturing. The same goes for petty obsessing over political platforms and plank-mongering - I tend to view this stance as peacock nit-picking - the style of "substance".