CLOSE YOUR EARS WHEN YOU ARGUE WITH A CONSERVATIVE!

Its so hard to take a vacation these days, just ask the folks at Faux News.

I'm still "on vacation," but watching this Karl Rove thing unfold in the arena of political talk shows has compelled me to break away for a moment, to offer some serious, non-satirical advice to anyone who both reads this and wishes to argue our case:

CLOSE YOUR EARS WHEN YOU ARGUE WITH A CONSERVATIVE.

I mean that figuratively, but if you have to put your fingers over your ears to stop hearing their jabbering, DO IT!

We forward-thinkers are, ironically, more right-brained than our neocon-anderthal cousins. Hence, we're better at communicating (among so many other things). This means we can HEAR AND TALK AT THE SAME TIME.

Unfortunately, in today's atmosphere of talking head-political tacticians, this attribute seems more like a liability. It's what drives me crazy about most of us liberals. We're three words into our argument... the right-wing nutjob next to us decides to interrupt... so we SHUT UP SO WE CAN HEAR THEM TALK. It's not what we want to do... it's what we're wired to do.

I've seen it a million times.LEARN TO WORK AROUND THIS REFLEX! Please please please...

I just watched a Democratic spokesman on MSNBC get creamed in what should have been the easiest debate of his life - simply because he couldn't stop stammering every time Monica Crowley interrupted him.

We all need to learn that the conservative mind excels at the singular, tunnel-vision tactic. Any tactic. We, the strategists, are the BIG PICTURE viewers. Those with ingrown tunnel-vision can easily ignore their neighbors' racket, while, unfortunately for us, the "big picture" includes what the Nazis next door are screaming.

CLOSE YOUR EARS WHEN YOU ARGUE WITH A CONSERVATIVE.