Welcome to the land of the sane, Mr. Johnson

Charles Johnson of conservative blog Little Green Footballs has decided he's not going to follow the American right off a cliff. This doesn't mean that Mr. Johnson has suddenly decided to be a progressive, but he's not buying what the worst elements of his side of the fence are selling.

I realize that there are those on the right for whom, say, Daily Kos represents the equivalent of the anti-science, religiously fanatical, racist, murderous influences peddled by the right's most famous spokespeople in the media. But a better parallel would have been if the Democratic Party were buying the doctrines of A.N.S.W.E.R. lock, stock, and barrel.

In my increasingly rare moments of optimism, I'd like to believe that Johnson's defection represents a step towards a political environment in which intelligent people of good will can disagree, and that we can have things like dialogue and compromise. I'm not optimistic, but for now, I applaud Charles Johnson for refusing to put ideology over his own brain.