edy for our purposes here).

I know it does make for a catchy narrative device, great framing, and protect one from appearing "subjective" (gasp!), but while I think one can agree to call Glenn Beck and Limbaugh substantially, perhaps even Far, Right, the assortment of evidence that this is also characteristic of "the Far Left" is: Jim Carrey on HuffPo, Affluent Parents in California, Dr. Lippmann, and Robert Kennedy.

WTF? I know Slate has always valued shiny, neat stories over accuracy over establishing your premise, but c'mon, throw us more than that. RFK can be given as "Far Left", but to pad it out such that he isn't drawing a line from ONE data point, he gives us an actor without clear larger political affiliation writing on a Left site, and the implication that Rich Parents in California = Far Left. I'm not even sure one can correlate affluence and "leftness" in California in that way -- after all, there are many rich people in Northern California, and many industrialists and capitalists throughout the state who may or may not be as Left as their famed Movie Industry colleagues; it's yet another big leap to call them "Far Left", other than on the evidence that: Hey, they live in a dominantly left state! Hey, they're rich! (Cuz all rich people are Democrats and Socialists, didn't you know?) Hey, they're paranoid about vaccines! (Well, hmm, now we're using our conclusion to solidify our premise-- but no Slate writer would ever do that, right?)

I know it just makes for a nifty framing device, one that's "too good to check" as it were, but if it is possible to connect anti-vaccine tendencies to Far Leftism (I didn't see him quoting, say, Anarchists, Marxists, and Socialists, or even Donohue, Nader, Kucinich, and McKinney) as well as Far Rightism, Beam didn't come close to doing it.

He's an idiot who disregards factual evidence in favor of a pleasing adolescent fantasy involving the big bad corporations in collusion with the big bad government, aided and abetted by the big bad scientists with made up data and no hearts and no souls. That makes him a typical dipshit left winger.

If he merely added the hatred of blacks and immigrants and the love of rich people, then he would be a typical dipshit right winger.

I agree that this was a patently stupid framing. It's just another example of how brainless political observation can become when it's all shoehorned into a simplistic "right vs left" cosmology. This article was sophomoric and poorly written.

I'm reminded of earlier Slate articles telling us how "the extreme left" is expousing some sort of "truthers" movement. Without, of course, citing ANYBODY who's arguably a spokesperson for any leftwing political point of view. There actually is a difference between some nutty opinions pulled off web comments and statements made by elected or appointed government officials or by media pundits those officials publicly kowtow to. And that difference matters!

Jim Carrey is on the list because his girlfriend, Jenny McCarthy, is an anti-vaccination loon and I think he goes along with her ravings to continue to get...well you get the picture.

Jim Carrey is on the list because his girlfriend, Playmate and well-known infectious disease specialist Jenny McCarthy is an anti-vaccination loon and I suspect he goes along with it to continue to get.....well you get the idea.

OK... I'll take your word for it that Jim Carrey's girlfriend is anti-vaccination. Exactly how does this make her representative of "the extreme left"? Or, has Beam just define "the extreme left" as people who don't seem to be stereotypically rightwing and who oppose vaccination?

This is known as circular reasoning.

He's extreme left because it is an extreme left position that the government of the United States is a fraud perpetuated by wealthy corporate interests. And the claim that vaccination is somehow harming people and that the evidence for it is being deliberately covered up by scientists supposedly beholden to corporate or governmental interests goes right along with that position.

And what makes that position 'extreme' left is that it's utterly divorced from reality. The government of the United States isn't offering vaccinations to the public because it's beholden to corporate interests, it's doing it because vaccinations are seen as a public good and because congressmen and presidents are beholden to the voters.