You know, I'm annoyed and angered by conservative commentators all the time. But nothing pisses me off more than the too cool for school liberal. Slate magazine has made an art form out of it: the person who's general idealogical temperment is to the left, but doesnt spend his or her time actually arguing against the right. All the ink goes towards critiquing the left.

Now, I think its incredibly important to be self critical, especially when it's done constructively. But I hate it when it's done with snark. If the point is just to score cheap points by going after soft-headed liberals, I'll just stick to David Horowitz, thanks. It's a cheap way to achieve "bite"-- using the insider status to deliver withering commentary on those other, self-obsessed lefties.

And really, does anyone need to hear this? Does anybody not know that there is a lot of guilt in a movie like Crash? I mean its not easy to pick a more vulnerable target than Hollywood leftism. And frankly I think our society could use a little more guilt. Better guilty navel gazing than a full speed ahead, never mind the consequences style favored by the right.

It's true, Crash is awful.

I guess what really hurts me is that there is a belief among a lot of younger people of the left wing persuasion that this is the only way to attack what they see around them, through satire.

I mean, look-- I love the Daily Show as much as the next guilt-ridden socialist whiteboy. But the thing is, we can't end at the Daily Show. Satire can't be the final product of a movement of reform. I'm not knocking satire. It's an incredibly important part of our democracy and at times in the last six (twelve?) years it's seemed like all we have.

But I have to say that I meet a lot of other young people, people who are intelligent and passionate and fiercely political, and when I spend time with them I despair. Because they think that the Daily Show (or This Modern World or Get Your War On or whatever else) is the end of political action, instead of the beginning. They see that political commentary, political humor, is funny and emboldening and they think that it alone will change the world. But it won't. It takes more than snark. And if saying that means I'm obtuse, I guess I can live with that.

Up until about eight months ago I was devoting a lot of my time to antiwar activism. I don't claim to ever have been selfless or any kind of a leader but I was trying, with a lot of other people, to make some kind of positive change. And there are many, many things to criticize about the American antiwar movement. Michelle Goldberg has mined those deficiencies for a lot of articles. But as much as the antiwar movement is silly and misguided and frequently maddening, it is an effort to create social change through community action. And that is what has to follow from satire. Satire can't be the end. Michelle Goldberg and John Stewart mocking an antiwar movement that at least superficially they agree with can't be the end.

And I'm sorry if this is yawing pretty far from the content of this article, and I'm sorry if I'm grandstanding (which I'm sure I am). I don't mean to change the subject or demonize Andrew O'hehir. But I honestly believe that the number of young people who stand against the war but won't work to end it because it's uncool is a tragedy of the American left. And sometimes, the above-it-all attitude makes me want to scream.