Barone: Cocooned Liberals

We all tend toward cocoon living, writes Michael Barone, "associating only with those who share your views, reading journalism and watching news that only reinforces them, [and] avoiding those on the other side of the cultural divide." But cocooning seems to hurt liberals more than conservatives.

Even in a cocoon, conservatives cannot avoid liberal mainstream media, liberal Hollywood entertainment and, these days, the liberal Obama administration. They're made uncomfortably aware of the arguments of those on the other side. Which gives them an advantage in fashioning their own responses.

Liberals can protect themselves better against assaults from outside their cocoon. They can stay out of megachurches and make sure their remote controls never click on Fox News. They can stay off the AM radio dial so they will never hear Rush Limbaugh.

The problem is that this leaves them unprepared to make the best case for their side in public debate. They are too often not aware of holes in arguments that sound plausible when bandied between confreres entirely disposed to agree. We have seen how this works on some issues this year.

Barone offers two examples: liberals' shock that "a majority of justices seemed to take the case against Obamacare's constitutionality very seriously indeed," and the Wisconsin public-unions-vs-Gov-Scott-Brown drama that isn't going well for libs.