Reacting to Mike Huckabee's attack on comparative effectiveness research, Kevin Drum describes the liberal dilemma:
This is what makes it hard to figure out which conservatives are worth reading engaging with. The intelligent right doesn't buy the "poisonous tree" argument, of course, and has a considerably more nuanced view of what a conservative healthcare system would look like. That nuanced view includes the obvious point that we should try to figure out what works and what doesn't. That view, however, is not shared at all by the mainstream right, which long since abandoned reason to take Huckabee's side that CER is a liberal plot to kill old people and babies. Thus the liberal problem: it's not really worth arguing with the mainstream right about this, since their view isn't amenable to reason, and it's not really worth arguing with the moderate right about this since their views have no support in the real world. So what's the answer?
If you have an answer, let me know. I go through this same process every single day.