Conservative critiques of Robert Scheer are about as newsworthy as a Scheer blast at George Bush or Rush Limbaugh. But Kevin Drum, the SoCal-based house blogger for the Washington Monthly, feels compelled to explain to his readers why he objects to Scheer. The immediate spark is yesterday's op-ed piece in the L.A. Times where Scheer pleads thinly that "true conservatives" should back Kerry over Bush. Drum blogs:

If this [the column] were written for a liberal blog or The Nation it would be fine. But it's not. It's a column written for the mainstream press, and I doubt that even one single LA Times reader — and certainly not one single conservative — will change their vote this year based on this kind of juvenile shreekiness. Quite the opposite, in fact.

That's why I don't like Scheer. He's a smart guy and a talented writer, but he's too self-indulgent to modulate his tone based on his audience. He's got valuable op-ed real estate at his disposal, and the purpose of valuable op-ed real estate is to persuade doubters, not drive them into the hands of your enemies by confirming their worst fears about your own side.

Until he figures that out, he needs to be confined to writing flyers for anti-globo rallies and polemics for CounterPunch. In the meantime, I don't feel like losing any elections because of him.

Drum's post has drawn 280 comments so far. Thanks to Tim for the pointer.