In fact, this very meanness and intolerance is one way to distinguish whether any given debate is really a battle of ideas or of interests. Idea warriors fight by Marquess of Queensbury rules, while interest warriors believe in winning by any means necessary. If at the end of the day, you are holding the votes, the land or the dollars, it does not matter how you got them. History is written by the winning ideas, say the idea warriors. The interest warriors reply that history is written by the victors.
Politicians are interest warriors.
Last month, I analyzed Newt Gingrich's slashing attack on environmentalists. Another way to tell an idea debate from an interest debate is to see who is building a house, and who is knocking one down. Like a house, every meme begins with a cornerstone, and piles other bricks on top of it in an orderly way. A speaker, like the Speaker of the House, who knocks the bricks out and pulls up the cornerstone but reveals no house of his own, is not an idea warrior. And so on.