1. It’s full of self-regard and manufactured drama. These mafia metaphors and images of “teams” competing against one another grant an importance to these discussions and disagreements that they do not actually possess, and move them into a realm where they do not belong. I’m not saying that ideas don’t matter. I’m just saying that, even if the triumph of the Republican Party is your primary concern, it takes a tremendous lack of perspective to assume that these kinds of discussions (e.g., bloggers wondering if McCain made a bad VP pick) are all that significant in the grand scheme of things. Really, not that many people are paying attention. It’s more important to have an intellectually honest discussion for the sake of the people who actually ARE paying attention, rather than yoking these discussions to grand causes. Once you’ve done that you can tell everyone to shut up because they’re endangering the party’s chances, the war effort, the future of the country, etc. I don’t think this is a calculated debater’s trick designed to shut down open discussion and privilege one viewpoint; I think it’s just indicative of a melodramatic cast of mind.

2. Somewhat related to the first point: I have to say that reading Rittelmeyer’s post just made me tired. It seems like an exhausting, joyless and regimented way to approach politics and ideas. “Who’s team are you on?” “Don’t take disagreements outside the family!” “It’s okay to say ‘X’ in this context, but don’t you dare say it in that other venue!” What are all these rules, who makes them, and what happens if I don’t know what they are or choose not to follow them? Organized crime and organized sports have “organization” in common–you can’t participate if you aren’t willing to submit to the authority of a single leader. That’s a corrosive metaphor for political debate in the first place, but it’s also nonsensical, since there’s no one “leader” to whom conservatives or even Republicans can turn for guidance, and to whom they owe their loyalty. You end up with this cramped, angry and bankrupt perspective where you write angry denunciations of people who criticize John McCain, because he’s the Republican and we have to support him, even though McCain made his reputation as a self-aggrandizing critic of his own party. I’m not really interested in untangling those contradictions; I’d rather not be on a “team.”

If other people want to narrow their horizons and cultivate self-images as “teammates” or mafiosi that’s their business. But they shouldn’t try to cast themselves as team captains or mob enforcers, because they don’t have the power to enforce anything, and when they pretend that they do they just look petty and ridiculous.

The description of what passes for today’s movement conservatism as essentially a form of organized crime strikes me as quite funny and spot on, although I’m not sure that was the author’s intent.