Posted on 03/07/2010 12:04:28 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Demonize your opponent. Technically, it's nothing new. But Republicans are finding that it is possible to go too far, especially if you get caught. Party leaders are backing away from a fund-raising document that suggests using "fear" to motivate donors and paints Democrats as cartoon caricatures: President Obama is the Joker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Cruella DeVille and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Scooby-Doo. Ruh-ro!
It's pretty hard to get worked up over such excess, as Democratic outrage resembles Claude Rains' sly Captain Renault in "Casablanca," shocked that such dirty dealings are going on.
But it is depressing that attacks that start by parsing complex issues -- from health-care reform to national security concerns -- quickly descend into school-yard taunts. The GOP PowerPoint, first reported by Politico, was catchy and occasionally funny, but it offended because it's ultimately so silly. If you are comfortable in your beliefs, isn't that enough?
Disagreement has become a battle to the death, with the other guy not just wrong but inhuman, dangerous even. It's easy to put horns on his head and to exact retribution whenever possible.
Though I have no doubt the intentions are based on Church doctrine on one side and civil rights on the other, it was troubling that the Catholic Archdiocese and Washington, D.C., could not reach a more conciliatory solution in the matter of medical insurance at Catholic Charities in the district. The archdiocese decided to cut health coverage for spouses of all future Catholic Charities employees rather than provide benefits to same-sex partners; the city would not adjust its decision or provide a waiver for the Church. When the city and the Catholic Church had a similar spat in San Francisco, they reached a compromise allowing insured employees to add anyone legally in their home -- parent, child or partner -- to their health-care package. Compromise, however, has come to mean capitulation. The result in Washington will be fewer people with health insurance.
Standing on principle looks nothing like strength. Instead, it has taken on a tone of defensiveness. And it happens on both sides.
As I prepared to leave for the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville last month, excited to talk with some of the 600 delegates who traveled to this first-ever event and – let's face it – wondering what Sarah Palin was like up close, I was surprised at the reaction from people who I thought were more open-minded. One told me she didn't know how I could go because she wouldn't be able to even be near them, political disagreement being a contagious disease, I suppose. Others feared for my safety, as though a journalist with a notepad and tape recorder would be the prime target for a beat-down in the middle of the Opryland resort. I didn't get this much hand-wringing solicitude from friends when I reported a story on Confederate heritage groups, and traveled to meetings where folks refused to salute the American flag "because you can't serve two masters" and punctuated solemn renditions of "Dixie" with a rebel yell.
Some tea party activists had indeed earned bad reputations, with crude signs, some disruptive behavior and the occasional firearm at rallies. But no group wants to be judged by its most extreme rhetoric. I figured the best way to get to know what someone believes was to just ask.
My first night in Nashville, sitting with three delegates from Florida, we all managed to get through dinner with no raised voices or food fights. Different roads had led them to friendship and their pro-small government, anti-health-care bill stance. We even had an interesting discussion of states' rights vs. federal rule after I said that Supreme Court intervention overturning laws forbidding marriage between blacks and whites made it possible for me to marry my husband years later.
But on the larger stage, nuances disappeared, with countless references to the president as a socialist, communist and fascist. "I have nothing against him personally," folks would say before unloading a barrage of insults, one comparing him unfavorably to Mussolini. While delegates expressed some resentment at being defined by Tom Tancredo's speech advocating civics literacy tests as a voting prerequisite, they greeted the former Colorado congressman with loud applause and stood in a long line to chat and take pictures. A convention organizer said: "Congressman Tancredo had a gift for understatement."
Also popular in Nashville was former Judge Roy Moore, famous for his refusal to obey a federal judge's order to move a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court building. His appeal was religious and muscular, as he excoriated President Obama for "denying we are a Christian nation" and called for "300 million people armed in the cause of liberty."
The terms revolt and revolution were tossed about throughout the convention weekend, with those claiming to be true patriots warning, often with a disingenuous wink, that the prospect of armed conflict against the duly elected U.S. government was at hand. Media were placed firmly placed in the unpatriotic, villainous category. Amy Kremer of Tea Party Express led a wave of jeers toward the back of the room where media representatives camped on a platform. "We do not need the media -- at all," she said. I was in the audience at the time, sharing a pleasant breakfast with a nice older couple from California, who looked a little embarrassed. "She's going too far," they said, not daring to stand and join the crowd in shouts of "go home" since we had just been talking about family and other normal stuff. (We've been in touch since. They approved of my stories and invited me to their home.)
When conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart took over, he continued the"liberal media" bashing, saying he was going to organize a tea party at "Sixth Avenue in Manhattan," so the patriots could stand in the way of the rich elite and their beach getaways at the Hamptons. I was relieved to know he wasn't talking about me, living as I do far away on the North Carolina-South Carolina border in a lifestyle so modest that thieves recently turned their noses up at my non-flat-screen behemoth of a barely working TV.
On the one side, accusations of "racist" and "scary," on the other, "Whole Foods" and "al-Qaeda" sympathizers. Partisan politics is defined by catch phrases and characterizations that barely make sense.
The insults flying left and right remind me of a five-page handwritten letter I received when I wrote about the Confederate flag then atop the South Carolina statehouse. It was so filled with hate that by the end, the author had stopped communicating in complete sentences, content to just scrawl random insults until she ran out of steam.
Is there any hope that the 50-state "civility tour" of former Iowa Rep. Jim Leach, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, is taking grass root? The Coffee Party, with more than 87,000 fans and counting, hopes its March 13 National Coffee Party Day will draw believers in its mission to give "voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government." So now you have to join a group to calmly chat? Some how, I don't know if anything not powered by outrage has a chance. That simplistic sniping is not a new phenomenon brings little comfort. You'd think we'd know better by now.
“civility” means they want you to shut up.
I’m not gonna shut up.
Another lib “journalist” playing the Louis role of being shocked at republican “insensitivity!”
“Some tea party activists had indeed earned bad reputations, with crude signs, some disruptive behavior and the occasional firearm at rallies. But no group wants to be judged by its most extreme rhetoric. I figured the best way to get to know what someone believes was to just ask.”
Liberals kill and are supported by Marxists like Soros and they are “civil” this is why Liberals will never understand why they will be imprisoned or dead one day because of appeasement. Disruptive behavior? You mean SEIU kicking the crap out of someone...
Thats right. Ther left wants conservatives to shut up. Eff that!
The left has these little media creations of their leadership, they are totally fabricated.We can effectively attack them with satire, ridicule and derision , using the truth.
We have been doing that and it is VERY effective.
The left’s propaganda is losing its effectiveness on Americans. We need to keep up with the derision, truth and Satire.
” Hows that hopey changey thing workin’ for yah?”Sara Knows!
And she is an expert.Death panels ( yes) she knew what to say. Highly effective.
We need to do MORE of it. not less.
Where was all this whining and hand-wringing about “civility” when President Bush was in office? Hmmmmmm?
dittos!!
CIVILITY: It’s the new word for “bi-partisanship” which only means one thing to the dems: agree with us or else.
We’re not allowed to disagree or argue with the dems because they are the chosen leaders and we must listen to them because they know best .. I’m at puke already!
When the dems start demanding we treat them nicely .. they’re imploding .. don’t get in the way!
BOO HOO HOO.
Driving last couple of days, listening to Pat Caddell, democratic strategist, on talk radio.
Basically, all of MSM, democrats, obama and his administration know how much trouble they are in. How angry all of America is at Obama and congress. But they have been warned to continue lying and not speak a word of what they know.
Let me see if he has said that in a different format for his exact words. Obama’s administration will go down as one of threats and lies. No way around it now.
Exactly! Thank you! The comparisons to Bush as a chimp, Hitler, Satan, The Joker and there was NONE of this whining and moaning from the liberals. They relished and laughed at it. Now, that they are on the receiving end, suddenly, "We must return to civility"? Hypocrites!!!
The left not only wants conservatives to shut up but they are making sure the amount of anger is stopped from becoming mainstream.
Sean Hannity on thursday.Part of Pat Caddells warning.
Caddell: Health Care Bill Passage Will Lead Dems ‘Over A Cliff’
FOX News contributor Pat Caddell and author Ann Coulter joined Sean to discuss the status of the health care bill. “Somebody better start paying attention to Howard Dean and myself because this is a fiasco that the Democrats are headed toward,” Caddell told Sean. “This ‘march of folly’ that they’re on is going to lead the Democratic Party over a cliff.” The citizens of this country believe that skyrocketing deficits are about to take America’s future away, and they care about it.
“A line has been drawn in the sand,” Coulter interjected, “And the American people are fed up with the way they’re being governed.” “Democrats are playing with real fire here. We’re going to see a massacre if they keep this up,” Caddell concluded.
I found this on youtube. This is the level of anger December 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AVuxnTFSms
How many of you have heard any of this in main stream media? They were warned. Do not report on the anger. Shut these people UP!
Sorry Leftist children, you sowed the wind now you are reaping the whirlwind.
Conservatives should not be fooled by this hypocritical caterwauling on the Left. Use GW Bush as our object lesson in the futility of trying to coexist with the Leftist media posse. Bush spent 8 years playing nice with these clowns.
How did that work out for us?
Yes, that anger is so thick you can cut it with a bread knife here in some places in New England.Its viceral. The people know that the intention is to remove their liberty, for no cogemnt reason.It is not indicated by emergency.It has some very angry.
The MSM ignores this anger at its peril. They too will tank. Mmost of them have vert serious ratings and ad revenue issues, due to their propagandizing for the Obama Junta.
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