BETTER CHERRY-PICKED ANECDOTAL DATA PLEASE. I'm never inclined to buy arguments that make broad generalizations about the nature of (as opposed to specific arguments made by) "liberals" and "conservatives" in any case. But I had no doubt that Peter Berkowitz's argument was unserious when he said that "Democrats instinctively want to repeal the Bush tax cuts, establish government supervised universal healthcare, and impose greater regulation on trade." Really, given the opportunity to cherry pick three issues on which liberals march in lockstep you're going to pick trade? David Sirota and Bill Clinton have the same views about NAFTA? Really? As noted here, most of his other examples fare no better. In addition, on abortion he ignores the fact that the most powerful Democrat in Congress is pro-life, while no major Republican Congressional leader is pro-choice... despite the fact that the pro-choice position is the majority position. All Berkowitz proves is that it's easy to establish that liberals have no internal debates when you ignore all their internal debates irrespective of the evidence. --Scott Lemieux
