Definition of a Liberal

[Bucky]

9. That's not irony

The knee jerk complaint from the Righties at the time was that it was a liberal actor playing a conservative in order to make conservatives appear out of touch and ineffectual. The reality was that Alda was an actor playing a complex character and that Arnie Vinick actually made some pretty strong points in the course of the debate.

Of course Vinick was an idealized character. He was devoid of the rancor and the misanthropy and the seething conspiratorial paranoid anger that fuels so much of right wing politics. He was a Robert Taft Republican, a main street let's-do-business Republican, who refused to engage in fear mongering or dog whistle politics. And he was gracious in defeat and cooperative in government--a relic from the 1940s.

He's not the kind of animal we deal with today.