Joel at the Hyde Park Associates blog tackles the foam-flecked attacks from right-wing bloggers on Al Gore for his recent speech in Saudi Arabia. His telling concluding paragraph:

I would have been much more impressed (and influenced) had the conservatives simply said, “Al Gore’s words could be misconstrued as an attack on America,” or “Gore showed poor judgment in speaking at an event that was in part sponsored by a company with ties to the Bin Laden family.” I know these kinds of statements are not as much fun, and not as inflammatory, but truth and fairness can also be effective.

Something about his post struck a chord in me, especially after the conversations I had at Northern Voice and the Ragan Speechwriter’s Conference. Here’s how I responded:

I hope you’re right about truth and fairness. And indeed, I suspect that’s the way the world’s headed.

One of the big things about blogging is supposed to be authenticity. Well, there’s very little that’s authentic in the overblown rhetoric you read on most partisan blogs.

Reciting talking points, striving for the worst possible construction of your opponents’ remarks and turning political discourse into a sludgefest of ugly hyperbole and uglier accusations — I hold out a tiny flicker of hope that these will all soon be proven to be counterproductive, and signs not of the depth of a blogger’s convictions but of the bankruptcy of their ideas.

Wouldn’t it be great if the most convincing thing you could do would be to understate your case, acknowledge the strengths of your opponent’s argument and show some indication that you’ve engaged in a little reflection?