There’s a tasty little morsel of irony in the fact that the politician that said “cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom” is almost single-handedly responsible for driving mine to new heights. My cynicism, that is, not my wisdom. So it shouldn’t be surprising that my first response when I read about the new political organization No Labels the other day was “Great. Finally a party for people who don’t believe in anything“. Of course, I’ve already sort of got that angle covered with my own political ideas, which over the past few months have included the Donner Party and the Punk Party. But after watching a few of No Labels’ video streams and following up on the spin they’re getting in the news cycle today, I think I may give them a longer look. The general reaction in the media so far seems to be that starting a rational dialog about solutions to the nation’s problems is somehow a preposterous idea. This piece on Slate is essentially a lengthy snark on No Labels’ assumed naivete. Politico is grumbling that there aren’t enough Republicans involved. The Christian Science Monitor is trying to spin up the rumor that it’s just New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s vehicle to the White House in 2012. On salon they’re all up in arms about who’s funding things, as if a political 501(c)(4) ever runs around disclosing their backers. They’ve only raised about a million dollars, by the way, which is chump change in today’s politics. I think the problem we’re witnessing here is that the press is so accustomed to feasting on the Nazi/Socialist slander that drives today’s politics that it collectively can’t handle a little sanity. The only tangible criticism I personally have so far is that they seem to have brazenly ripped off their graphics from a New York artist. Which really only means someone in the media department is probably getting canned, and some not-terribly-original artist in New York will probably get a payoff. So is No Labels just an astroturfing operation? I guess we’ll find out with time, but for the moment I think turning the rhetoric dial below 11 for a while can’t hurt. So far the only red flag for me was Joe Lieberman’s presence, but hell, he’d probably show up at a KKK rally if he thought it would keep him in office. And will No Labels’ message of cooperation get anything done? Who cares. As P.J. O’Rourke said, “The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop”.