I don’t know what it is about center-right politics that makes people ignore defeating the left in favor of being punctiliously correct and “fair minded,” even when that behavior has the effect of helping the other side out.

When given the choice between giving the left a vigorous knee to the groin or pushing someone on their own side down a flight of stairs, our side is overwhelmingly staffed by the latter to the detriment of those who are engaged in the battle.

I’ll stipulate up front that none of us are free of error or always possessed of the best judgment. That happens, it is a function of blogging without a salary but with a lot of passion. So what should we do when a brother at arms errs, or even appears to err?

Let’s take for instance Patterico’s whacking The Other McCain for “racist thoughts.” I’ve don’t know Patterico, however I consider his blog to be indispensable reading and his outing of Glenn Greenwald as the sultan of a veritable seraglio of sock puppets as meriting a Nobel Peace Prize as much as the most recent recipients. However, rather than address the issue privately, which would have, as the later blog posts on both sides have revealed, at its worse, unartful wording, Patterico for reasons known best to him decided he had to indelibly link RS McCain to the racism charge. When one considers the number of electrons sacrificed in this particular battle with the number used to cover a NAMBLA activist being appointed as “Safe Schools Czar,” one really has to wonder at the reasoning.

Maybe there is some kind of perceived virtue in this kind of thing but it escapes me. It isn’t like the left is going to let a potential charge of racism go by untouched, George Soros has a whole website staffed by people pulling in six figure salaries to do this. Trust me, they don’t need our help.

Just yesterday, Erick posted a piece on the parliamentary legerdemain used by Harry Reid, with the assistance of the Senate Parliamentarian, a guy you’ve never heard of called Alan Frumin (I close my eyes and visualize Woody Allen, only more nervous) which will make efforts to repeal Obamacare substantially harder for a future Senate. It is definitely inside baseball, and Erick had consulted with several persons who professionally work with the Senate parliamentary procedure before writing. In other words, he actually researched the subject.

But, out of the blue, at Ace of Spades one of the front pagers feels honor bound to write a post declaring Erick to be wrong. Erick’s not wrong in this case but the point is that the damage is done. Media Matters, or whatever, doesn’t have to devote a bit of energy to batting down the story, they can just link to Gabriel’s post and move on, so to speak.

Not very helpful to the cause and inexplicable from any point of view other than the desire to point out errors on the part of your own side for whatever motivation.

In the Army Officer’s Guide the standard for your relationships with other officers is “every brother courageous and every sister virtuous.” We’re in a real struggle for the future of this nation and every person on our side has a role they need to play in this struggle. There is no place in this serious work for sniping at other people on our side. If you don’t like them or think their opinion is wrong, do the manly thing and ignore them. For heavens’ sake don’t take on the role of an unpaid consultant to Media Matters.