Who’s a troll now?

Not that long ago David Bernstein wrote:

Huge increases in spending on education and other domestic programs that are not even within the federal government’s constitutional purview; a new prescription drug entitlement for the elderly; Wilsonian rhetoric and actions in foreign policy; Kennedyesque manned space mission boondoggles; clumsy protectionism; in its appointments to high-level positions, the most affirmative-action conscious administration in American history; a proposal to legalize the status of illegal aliens; and now, a huge proposed increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Remind me again of why liberals are so hostile to George Bush? Give him a phony Haavaad accent instead of phony Texas twang, a wonky college life, a less religious persona, and an attorney general other than John Ashcroft, and George Bush, in theory, would be a dream president for many liberals…

and Brad DeLong responded particularly intemperately saying Bernstein was a “either a out-and-out troll saying things he doesn’t believe or is remarkably uninformed.”

But when Ezra Klein says:

Republicans are getting elected by promising to protect the environment, strengthen entitlement programs, conduct humanitarian interventions, back Democratic security initiatives, and support public schools. They are getting elected by pretending to be Democrats, albeit Democrats who wear cowboy boots.

and liberal Matthew Yglesias writes:

the Republican Party has essentially abandoned the small-government agenda, a small army of disgruntled conservative think tankers notwithstanding

Brad has nothing but happy praise writing, “It’s twue! It’s twue!” and it’s a “a much better country for it.” (See also here).