justify my margins

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Mar 29, 2007

This from Jonathan Rauch, writing in the current Atlantic:

The battle lines appeared to have been drawn for a national culture war, waged by extremes of left and right over the heads of a marginalized center.

A marginalized center?

When a metaphor is that far out of control, you know the argument has gone off the rails -- if indeed there's an argument to derail in the first place.

Rauch, as it happens, is the author of Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for Jonathan Rauch (H. Holt: 2004). I won't spoil his Atlantic essay for you by giving away where he locates the center.