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More thoughtful people than Michael Berube were initially puzzled about the principle of inclusion behind DiscoverTheNetwork and the famous grid, which led me to the decision to modify it. (web site) I did this not by excluding any of the leftwing individuals already in the database -- but by introducing five categories to the grid that differentiated the spectrum of the left. These categories are

1. Totalitarian Radicals: Ward Churchill, Alexander Cockburn, Abul Rachman
2. Anti-American Radicals: Katrina Van Den Heuvel, Jane Fonda, Mumia Abu Jamal
3. Leftists: Hillary Clinton, Bill Moyers and Justice Ruth Ginsburg
4. Moderate Leftists: Bill Clinton, Peter Jennings, Maureen Dowd
5. Affective Leftists: Barbra Streisand, Katie Couric, Martin Sheen

Of course I never fooled myself into thinking that Berube and other leftists would be satisfied by these distinctions. In their minds, the first two categories are "McCarthyism" and last three don't describe "leftists" at all. These are liberals.

But are they? In fact, the entire database DiscoverTheNetwork.org (and a lot of my analytic work on the left contained in previously referenced books and in articles on the web) is designed to show that the common usage of the term "liberal" is a calculated obfuscation by leftists to provide themselves with an advantage in the political contest -- an advantage that conservatives obligingly (and infuriatingly) seem willing to give them.

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Editor's Note: Why Michael Can't Read: Defining the American Left -- Part II will be published March 16, 2005 on GOPUSA.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

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