Politics: Hug Me, I?m a Heretic

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Politics Hug Me, I'm a Heretic For pundits, why it pays to play the heretic. By David Weigel Posted Monday, Apr 30, 2012, at 10:40 PM ET The column has been tweeted more than 2,400 times. More than 100,000 people have clicked a tiny, omnipresent "f" and shared it on Facebook. The Washington Post's comment widget, groaning under the pressure, stopped counting the number of new scrawls at 5,000. The title of this op-ed blockbuster, by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, is "Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem." You see why it was popular. Ornstein is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mannis at the Brookings Institution. The two think tanks, both embedded near Washington, D.C.'s Dupont circle, can be described, roughly, as right-wing and left-wing. And so ThinkProgress gave the "conservative American Enterprise Institute" partial credit for the column, as did the Detroit News, as did the Vermont Times Argus. Newser slapped on the headline "Conservative Think Tank: Mess is the GOP's Fault." That was the story—not that Republicans were criticized, but that they were criticized by a conservative. That meant that it mattered. But some of the Facebook-sharers were played for simps. Ornstein doesn't pretend to be a conservative movement, Republican scholar. "He's as conservative a Democrat as there's ever been," suggests his friend David Frum. Back when Al Franken had a radio show, Ornstein would come on to talk politics and find areas of agreement. Franken would play him in with a Bruce Springsteen song for which he'd written new lyrics: Noooooorm in the U ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Spitzer: The Founding Fathers Not Only Supported Mandates, They Imposed Them. Take That, Scalia! Malcolm Gladwell Explains Why College Football Should Be Banned YKK: The Mysterious Japanese Company Behind the World's Best Zippers	Advertisement
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