It's so easy to start listing the whack jobs on the right wing fringe... the Bachmanns, Palins, Inhofes, O'Reillys, Hannitys, Becks, Savages etc of the world. Any one of us could probably come up with thirty such names in five minutes... people of the right whose ideas are so far out the mainstream, or whose paranoia is so glaringly displayed, as to be laughable if not for their influence on political discourse and policy in this country.
I know those of us on the left aren't perfect, and in an effort to be fair, I tried to compile a list of lefties and progressives that met the same billing - our own little black sheep as it were... folks we wish we could just hide away in a closet somewhere so they no longer embarrass us and our causes.
But I'm stumped, and I don't know if it's because of my own blind spots and bubble mentality or if it's due to the fact that there isn't much of a left-wing lunatic fringe in mainstream government and media.
Other than Rod Blagojevich, The only names that came to mind were Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton, and I'm not even sure that they qualify. Kucinich is pretty goofy, but is he in the same league as the righties that we have grown to know and loathe? And while Sharpton's ego and grandstanding do tend to get in the way of his message at times, I find it difficult to not be impressed with his intellect and many of his ideas regarding social injustice.
So I'm soliciting your thoughts and any names you might have. It's difficult to establish an exact criteria, so I guess that I would ask you to consider your answers as those on the left who might be comparable to the standard roster of right wing nut jobs that we tear apart on a daily basis here at Kos. They should be well-known and influential in politics or media, and they should be suitably cringe-worthy.
Update
(I tried this update once and it didn't seem to stick)
I sincerely apologize if this comes across as a witch hunt. On some levels, it is difficult to not have that impression. I think what the discussions have shown me is that I myself may have a bubble mentality, and that is something I am not proud of.
Whether we all agree on specific names or not is immaterial. I think the larger point is that there are people or groups that may purport to advance our agenda who end up doing more harm than good, whether it be through their tactics or the lunacy of their arguments. That I couldn't come up with a single name (I essentially retracted Blago in a comment, and the diary hedges on Kucinich and Sharpton) says more about me and my pro-progressive prejudices than anything else.
I do think it is interesting to note that, out of the many names cited, few fall into the realm of mainstream politicians or media personalities. I may have missed one or two, but I don't recall seeing anyone mentioning a sitting Democratic elected official other than Kucinich, about whom there is much debate. As for the world of mainstream media, Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore were presented, though there is no consensus on those names. I'd like to think this reinforces my notion that we take a more honest and intellectual approach to public policy.
What I'm taking away from the comments is that, while we lefties may have our own embarrassments, they generally are working on the outside of the system, and don't necessarily wield much in the way of actionable power or influence. On the right, however, we have several examples of people who are actively wielding (or trying to) influence from within government itself (your standard roster of nut-job politicians like Boehner, Inhofe, Sessions, Bachmann and (until recently) Palin. Then there are the media juggernauts like Rush and the Fox News cabal, who are powerful simply by the sheer numbers of people they reach with their lies, half-truths and unbridled insanity. We must remain vigilant lest they attain the reins again.