You have no idea how hard it was to write that.
Still, it drives me a little nuts that Peter Beinart even has to explain this. The idea that the more strident participants in the discourse can provide the rhetorical space for formerly "crazy ideas" to become suddenly not so crazy is such an obvious one. It's also part of the reason why the various "purge the Lefties" calls from Beinart, aside from being hideously offensive, have been so politically idiotic.
There are layers of discourse and they all can serve a purpose.
