I apreciate Brad Delong

One great thing about Brad Delong is his complete willingness to fully quote people who disagree with him. Last week Delong wrote:

I am, as I said above, a reality-based center-left technocrat. I am pragmatically interested in government policies that work: that are good for America and for the world. My natural home is in the bipartisan center, arguing with center-right reality-based technocrats about whether it is center-left or center-right policies that have the best odds of moving us toward goals that we all share--world peace, world prosperity, equality of opportunity, safety nets, long and happy lifespans, rapid scientific and technological progress, and personal safety. The aim of governance, I think, is to achieve a rough consensus among the reality-based technocrats and then to frame the issues in a way that attracts the ideologues on one (or, ideally, both) wings in order to create an effective governing coalition.

...while I am profoundly, profoundly disappointed and disgusted by the surrender of the reality-based wing of the Republican policy community to the gang of Republican political spivs who currently hold the levers of power, I do think that there is hope that they will come to their senses and that building pragmatic technocratic policy coalitions from the center outward will be possible and is our best chance.

This week Delong quotes this from Eric Alterman.

DeLong’s hope, while noble in principle, is emasculating in practice. And it’s one of many reasons why liberals continue get their asses handed to them, again, and again and again. This is war, and the other side needs to be soundly defeated—drowned in a bathtub, to borrow a felicitous phrase--before the sources of DeLong’s “disappointment and disgust” can be addressed as anything more than a dangerous delusion.

Would I have the balls to quote this without substantial comment?

Update: Delong:

The Stupidity! It Burns!! It Burns!!!

Andrew Sullivan writes:

Andrew Sullivan | The Daily Dish: I fear Maliki's government is powerless against the Shiite militias that have increasingly infiltrated it.

Maliki's government is the Shiite militias. The Shiite militias are Maliki's government. There is no "infiltration."