>As I said, I realize I can sound like a sap taking a
>position like that, but I've always thought the left's most powerful
>weapon is simply sweet reason.
No I'm afraid it isn't. Reason has all too little to do with politics. People believe the most amazing crap and no amount of rational argument can dislodge it. There are all kinds of psychological reasons for this which I hope will come out in our Butler seminar.
A few weeks ago I posted a longish excerpt from Zizek's The Sublime Object of Ideology, his example of Kurt Waldheim's campaign for the Austrian presidency. The left denounced Waldheim for equivocating about his Nazi past. Paradoxically, his poll numbers went up as a result. Zizek explains this as the result of an identification with Waldheim - Austrians were guiltily ambivalent about their personal and national implication in Naziism, and welcomed the candidate's equivocations. I think that may be why Clinton's numbers have gone up with the Republican attacks on him - Americans want it both ways on personal morality, and identify with Clinton's equivocations. Good thing Bob Barr doesn't read Zizek!
Doug