I am a long-time resident of Appalachia (been here 16 years). After the West Virginia vote I heard all kinds of comments that suggest that the quotes, characterizations, skits on The Daily Show, etc. were not caricatures, they were representative. This is not about culture, about the Democratic Party ignoring these voters. Not from what I heard. One fellow I overheard said that he was never so proud to be a West Virginian than after this vote. Why? What, exactly, is wrong with Obama? Others asserted that he is a crypto-Muslim. That he was somehow not American. People who characterize themselves as Christian were making fun of Obama's middle name, wielding it with venomous intent as if it where all the reason one needed to reject this alien being.

None of this is about not being educated, not knowing the issues, being ignored by a certain political party, or not being familiar with a candidate. These are violations of fundamental norms of human behavior; and for those who claim to be Christian, this is a violation of everything Christ taught us. "Do onto others as you would have them do unto you." What happened to that? Or is it just for Sunday School, and for people like us?

Not all West Virginians feel this way, of course; I hope it does not go beyond the 21% who admitted that race was a factor in their vote. And I sincerely hope that I'm not the only one embarrassed by this. But a substantial portion do, and nothing Dee Davis and others offer as excuses can hide this big elephant in the room.

"In many minds, 'criticism' has today become an ugly word...It conjures up pictures of insidious radicals hacking away at the very foundations of the American way of life. It suggests non-conformity and nonconformity suggests disloyalty and disloyalty suggests treason, and before we know where we are, this process has all but identified the critic with the saboteur and returned political criticism into an un-American activity instead of democracy's greatest safeguard."

--Adlai Stevenson (as quoted in E.B. White's Points of my Compass)

The reason right wing pundits fret over the balance over at MSNBC is that they consider their point of view (the Right) as proper and mainstream, and the Left as a disease that must be eradicated, rather than a political point of view that Americans are entitled to hold. (Remember, these are the people who--as Glenn has pointed out again and again--claim to speak for the regular folks, despite the fact that polls show otherwise.) Thus even one Leftist on TV is like a tumor that must be excised.

The American Right, which has been running our government with little interruption since WWII, has been engaged in a long-running war with the Left. The New Deal would seem to be a victory for the Left, but in reality Roosevelt offered the New Deal to blunt an ascendant Left during the Great Depression and to save capitalism from itself. The Marshall plan was similarly conceived to put back into power the prewar European (Right-wing) elites, forestalling the Left who had done more than anyone in occupied countries to fight the Nazis. Then came the McCarthy witch-hunts. To be a Leftist was to be un-American. In more recent years Republicans (and many Democrats, such as Mark Penn) have actively attacked trade unions, culminating in Reagan's firing of the air-traffic controllers for engaging in a legitimate labor activity. (Remember trade unions? The guys who brought us the 40-hour work week and a safe work environment and who helped eradicate child labor?)

The result of this long war on the Left is that terms like "Left" and "Liberal" and "socialism" have lost their meaning. Thus it is possible to paint Obama as "The Most Liberal Senator In The Senate" (wait, wasn't that John Kerry last time around? What about Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy?). Thus it is also possible to paint Keith Olbermann, whose politics I know little about, as a "Liberal" simply because he does what a journalist should do: examine the actions of our Government critically. Thus it is possible to decry the "Liberal Media" because they are slightly less right than their most strident detractors.

This country needs a strong Left for balance. It won't have it until we can reform our MSM, which is nothing more than a propaganda tool for the Right.

anonny is absolutely right. We should have fail-safe policies. Nothing gets foisted on us by entities who only care about their own profits unless it is proven safe; not the other way around. Further, there must be safeguards for those who do not wish to have their cultivars ruined by GM pollen wafting with the breeze--not to mention legal protection against demands for royalties for crap they did not want. And finally, we must respect the sovereign decision made by other countries (what a concept!). If they don't want GM, that's their business, and that is their right.

If the GM industry is unwilling to meet this standard then GM should be deep-sixed. Anyone arguing that the benefits from GM should trump these common-sense requirements need to outline and demonstrate these benefits. GM has been all sizzle and no steak so far.

PS I agree with Silenced. A science blog on Salon would be nice.