Is the new left like the old new right?

I’m still catching up with all the newspapers I missed while overseas. One very interesting New York Times article that I’ve just read by Sam Tanenhaus, suggests that today’s blogging lefties are the equivelent of Bill Buckley and the conservatives that swept aside moderate Republicans while championing Goldwater and Reagan. I’m not sure what to make of Tanenhaus’s claim that today’s lefties are less extreme but they may indeed be a harbinger of things to come.