Have we not had a president who, after instigating a disastrous, unnecessary war made up the margin of difference in the 2004 elections by mobilizing a core conservative demographic by appealing to issues like gay marriage?

Do we not have a news media that now bows and scrapes to every point of view regardless of proof or common sense (like teaching evolution in public schools) for fear of offending people?

Have we not had an emotionally involving but intellectually deficient movement from the left, reduced to a kind of bumper sticker liberalism where shouting "anti-war" and "anti-free-trade" slogans is considered a good substitution for long and difficult reasoning on the same issues? Haven't the left adopted the same vacuous "if you're not with us you're with the enemy" rhetoric of Bush in their visceral opposition to him?

Don't we live in a culture where penning an anti-liberal or anti-Bush screed gets you on the bestseller list? Haven't a certain class of people benefited from the virulence of these imaginary culture wars at the expense of real engagement with issues of economic and social inequities and decreasing gov't regulation at the expense of the consumer?

We can learn to respect differences in ideas about religion or sexuality, but we can't if people make money and political hay out of magnifying those chasms.