Media

2) it reduces the appearance of a uniform Iron Voice (while also reinforcing the idea that the writer's just being objective): pharma shills can turn on the industry, and Kurzweil cultists always rag on Ayn Rand cultists
2b) or plausible deniability-building exercises like Monbiot backing nuclear power or the Euston Manifesto assclowns: Hari and Yglesias and the New Islamophobes made the Iraq War supported by more than the nuts who thought Bush was the Second Coming and that God told Pat Robertson to end Islam; it was now a banner that liberals (especially posers) could pick up: we're saving Iraqis from those dastardly 9th-century males