We've all heard of the Friedman Unit, and I am personally fond of the "Reality-Based Community." Well, if I may be so bold, I would like to propose a new colloquialism into the official lexicon of Blogtopia.

Stollerism [Stall-er-iz uh m]: When a card carrying member of the neo-progressive, isolationist Left, be them a blogger or not, declares all debate on a subject to be over. Such stifling of debate could be done by interjecting some random chart or graph, by citing one of 179 polls that support their claims, or, by merely declaring anything and everything to be a plot by the "conservative noise machine."

Why pick on Matt Stoller? Well, be it his very "open" desire to purge the Democratic Party of all dissenting voices, or his blatant obfuscation of facts in discussing rather complex issues, I think it's fair to say that he best exemplifies the arrogance and authoritarianism of the New-New-New Left.

For example, in response to one article in today's NYT, Stoller took it upon himself to summarize the entire Iranian governmental structure for us in one fell swoop. While doing so, he belittles the threat posed by the Iranian regime, and instead goes on to attack the "real" bad guys - Republicans:

1) Empowering Ahmadinejad: He's not particularly important within Iran, but this kind of mindless attention helps him domestically.

In demonizing Mr. Ahmadinejad, the West has served him well, elevating his status at home and in the region at a time when he is increasingly isolated politically because of his go-it-alone style and ineffective economic policies, according to Iranian politicians, officials and political experts.

2) Leading Us into a New War: Wars require villains. Ahmadinejad, as an ineffective buffoon with a weak domestic power center, wasn't enough of a villain. He must be built up into an all-powerful character that can only be removed by American force. The divestment from Iran campaign, currently swirling around the states, is accomplishing this, and will almost certainly continue, at least PR-wise, into the next Democratic administration. This will make negotiations much harder and the path to a military strike much more likely.

3) Attacking Free Speech at Columbia: Dismantling or weakening institutions that stand up against the right or could conceivably do so is one of the long-term conservative movement strategic interests. The Freedom Watch ad calling Columbia University 'appeasers' is meant to intimate, and it often works in subtle ways.

Anyway, just in case you were confused about Republican patriotism, here's a short primer. The right is suppressing speech, building up the power of an avowed 'villain' Ahmadinejad, and trying to lead us into a larger and more devastating war.

Ahh, I see. Stoller isn't the first to commit such a Stollerism, as it's a popular tactic on the far Left to dismiss the role played by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, perhaps to make the Right-Wing look silly, or whatever. Perhaps it makes them feel nuanced. However, as I've argued repeatedly, we should appreciate the place Iranian politics, and the Iranian psyche, is in. The president is constitutionally the second most powerful figure in the country, and while the Supreme Leader holds the reigns of the military, much of the judiciary and the Bonyads, the president has budgetary authority over the country. In Ahmadinejad's case, he has close ties with the Revolutionary Guard, the Guardians Council, as well as the more conservative elements on the Assembly of Experts.

Furthermore, unlike Western darlings like Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad understands how to use public mood and sentiment to build popular support. The notion is not commonplace in the Islamic Republic, and it should perhaps worry reformers. After all, Rafsanjani failed to even win a seat on the Majlis from his home province of Tehran, while the good mayor now sits atop the second most powerful seat in the country.

Set aside these annoying little facts, and you still have a hard time dismissing Ahmadinejad. Whether he holds autonomous power, or is just a shill for the Ayatollah, he is still the public face and mouthpiece for a regime that has killed Americans and financed global terrorism for over two decades.

Once upon a time, the Left stood up to totalitarianism and Fascism. Today, the neo-progressives ask us for polite discourse and discreet self-censorship. A leader of a domestically oppressive and globally destabilizing regime comes to one of terror's greatest crime scenes, and all the Matt Stollers of the world can talk about is "free speech" at Columbia and evil, despicable Republicans.

Once again, as Jason pointed out to us yesterday, it displays a very poor sense of priorities. But hey, there are bigger things, like permanent majorities and House seats to worry about. Liberalism is dead.

UPDATE: Let's give an honorary Stollerism mention to Glenn Greenwald, who seems to think that the president of a regime that's killing our troops abroad, while publicly hanging their own civilians for being gay, shouldn't be challenged by the media:

What this really illustrates more than anything else is the true danger to our national character and basic liberties from being in a permanent state of war fighting. When we become a society that just leaps from one New Ultimate Hitler Enemy Who Must Be Destroyed to the next, we ensure that all of our political values and institutions become infected by this bloodthirsty mentality. When we have one Enemy after the next to annihilate, who really cares about dreary luxuries like due process or restraints on government power or the First Amendment? Saddam/binLaden/Ahemdinijad/Assad is Evil, a Hitler, and all power must be vested without limits in our Leaders so they can destroy him/them. Along those same lines, this "interview" of Ahmadinejad by Scott Pelley of "60 Minutes" has to be read to be believed. As Ezra Klein says: "Pelley declined to interview Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and instead popped off aggressive statements as if he were a White House press release with a cardiovascular system."

Would Greenwald feel the same way if Pelley had ripped into Dick Cheney that way?