Slate Turning Red? 

Slate Turning Red?

Suddenly Slate seems to have time for voices you might expect from the red states.

Their series written by former members of the armed services (although it began before the election), now asks us to see the fighting in Fallujah from the Marines' perspective, and argues there is a good chance that the killing carried out by the now infamous Marine was justified. For good measure, the authors argue that the American method of fighting in Iraq is much more defensible than what the insurgents are doing.

Even more startling, Emily Yoffe, who is making herself "the human guinea pig," discovers that she likes shooting various guns at various shooting ranges--and that men who are shooting, even when she can't see their faces, are attractive. This is a bit like discovering the visceral red-stater in all or most of us.

When Slate had their staff say how they were going to vote, just before the election, almost all of them said Kerry. Maybe they are making a sincere effort to break out of the coccoon.

This may also be the kind of thing Garance France-Ritka means when she says Democrats should actually listen to the voters they claim to speak for. (The article she links to is behind the registration wall at TNR).