They Should Be Worried
AllahPundit linked this article while discussing what frankly looks an awful lot like the mother of all smear jobs. If the report is correct, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are becoming very, very concerned with increasingly anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric coming from the left wing of the party.
They should be.
A lot of bloggers, myself included, have noticed this trend for quite some time. It is becoming a major problem for the Democrats. Joe Lieberman's picture altered to make him appear to be in black face for a HuffPo piece by Jane Hamsher was fairly mild compared to some of the more hateful, vitriolic language being used daily on the lefty sites.
"They have been monitoring the [Ben] Cardin and [James] Webb races and they are extremely concerned," says a Senate Democrat leadership aide. "On both campaigns' staffs and on the Internet we are hearing and reading an ugliness that we haven't seen in probably decades. It's embarrassing, but we're chalking it up to a small segment of young people who are frustrated at constantly losing and are lashing out. To think otherwise raises too many uncomfortable questions about our party."
Apparently the House and Senate leaders are more uncomfortable than their party's most visible leader, because according to Capitol Hill sources, both Reid and Pelosi have pressed Democrat National Committee chairman Howard Dean to renounce the racist and anti-Semitic language and campaign tactics employed by those most closely associated with Dean's wing of the party, but Dean has refused to do so.
"He doesn't think it's a problem," says a DNC source. "This is something dreamed up by desperate Republicans. If Dean were to speak out, it would undercut the morale of a party that is on the verge of a historic victory. He's not going to take that away."
In fact, the DNC may actually be encouraging it.
In the past two weeks, the DNC and Democrat Party have been embarrassed by racist and anti-Semitic attacks against Republican Senate candidates Michael Steele and Sen. George Allen. In the case of Steele, it was racist blogging posts. In Allen's it was planted questions in the media about his Jewish heritage. Within minutes of Allen's addressing the issue of his family's Jewish roots, popular Democrat Party sites, such as the Daily Kos, Daily DD, and MoveOn.org, were inundated with such posts as:
"George Allen's New Jew Revue"
"They seriously want us to believe that Allen never knew why is grandfather was thrown in a concentration camp?"
"[Allen has] something against Jews."
"… 1) he's an anti-Jewish bigot, or 2) he's afraid he'll lose the bubba vote if people think he's a Jew."
"George Allen has a nasty, sadistic, vicious, violent streak… "
"What did [George Allen's mother] tell her son all these years, that her father was imprisoned by the Nazis because he was gay or a gypsy?"
This could be disastrous for the Democrats if this really starts getting reported by the mainstream media. The attacks on Allen appear to now be reaching the level of absolute insanity. That will backfire on the Webb campaign if the latest Salon hit piece gets picked up by the major media. Assuming the Prowler report is true, then Reid and Pelosi are exhibiting quite a lot of responsibility - provided they continue to press the issue. Dean is probably the biggest mistake the Democrats have ever made for a chairman, however.
Blogosphere, Left Wing, Politics | Gaius Monday, 25 September , 2006
By syn, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 6:42 am
“Chalking it up to a small segment of young people who are frustrated”
Would the ugliness of anti-Semitism and racism the Democrat leadership find uncomfortable about their Left base have anything to do with Ivory Tower ‘peace studies’ education?
Not long ago I thought the unholy alliance between the Progressive Left and Islamic Jihadism was based upon the Left’s disgust with capitalist systems and any ally which attacks capitalistic systems is an ally of the Progressive Left but after hearing the anti-Semitism and racism of the past five years I am beginning to wonder if the Progressive Left allies with Islamic Jihadists because they really do hate Jews, more specifically the Zionists, because Jews are typically a self-sufficient tribe. The Progressive Left has always used people of color as food to feed their idea that only governments can provide social justice and a black person for example who does not adhere to the groupthink collective disrupts the utopian concept. They need proverty-stricken people in order to justify their cause, they need victims to validate their existence.
I live in NYC and have been appalled by the number of Jewish NYers identifying themselves as Progressive Leftists speak much like what Islamists speak as in ‘get rid of Isreal, those evil Zionist Jews” speak. I remember when Air America wanted to get on the air they pushed the only all-black operated radio station off the air.
Democrat leaders are going to discover that their problems with their base run much deeper than just a few frustrated youths: they are facing an ideology based upon a collective groupthink which believes only they are capable of producing a socially just utopia and anyone who falls outside the whole is declared an evil enemy.
By Ed, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 7:12 am
C’mon now. This is all Henke’s “A-team” desperate attempt to try and save Allen’s career. Pulling a few wacky quotes out of comment threads to smear the Blogger or Candidate is ridiculous. Would you like to take responsibility for every comment posted here? Of course not, you’re responsible for yourself and no one else. I commend you for having an open comment policy and we need to defend others who do also.
Besides, how many incidents from Allen are you going to try to write off before you admit, where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Allen is damaged goods, it’s time to for him to retire and go off to K Street and make his fortune.
By Gaius, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 7:26 am
Ed, Allen isn’t even the point of the post. Yes, I understand the difference between posts and comments. The problem here is the sheer volume of those kinds of comments. They will damage the Democrats with their core constituencies. Do you not understand that? I think Reid and Pelosi understand it very well, indeed. This is deadly ground.
By Ed, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 7:37 am
The anti-semitism charges against Webb are almost solely coming out of the Allen campaign blog. Have you seen the comic that Henke is charging as a Jewish attack? Unless you think that financial interests and influence peddling is inherently Jewish, there is nothing anti-semitic about it.
The Cardin campaign I haven’t been following but I heartily reject the charges against Webb. It’s just an attempt to turn Allen’s self-inflicted wounds around.
By Donna, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 11:40 am
No one should engage in smearing a candidate with innuendos, let alone the use of cherry-picked bits of information or opinions. To do so just cheapens our whole country.
Though I support candidates of either party at times, depending upon the candidate’s actual record, I have a very hard time forgetting and forgiving the swift-boat team who thought it fine and dandy to trash a war hero for the politics only purpose of re-electing a non-hero who is certainly not sufficiently competent to lead us in the challenges we face. That smearing was a triumph of politics over national security, if one dispassionately looks at the increase in anger at America in the world today.
Those who got joy at the swift-boat stuff cannot see the ugliness or short-sightedness of it, so will just respond to my statement with yet another smear, as though repetition of smear statements makes them ok.
Where will this stupid on-and-on smearing lead?
By Gaius, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 12:11 pm
The “Christmas in Cambodia” story was shown to be false. The storyline that the Swft Boat group made Kerry lose is very convenient for the Dems, but I do not believe that is true in the least. That story played out almost entirely among party faithful, where it had no impact.
By syn, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 2:23 pm
Donna says:
“No one should engage in smearing a candidate with innuendos, let alone the use of cherry-picked bits of information or opinions. TO do so just cheapens our whole country.”
Then she says:
I have a very hard time forgetting and forgiving the swift-boat team who thought it fine and dandy to trash a war hero for the politics only purpose of re-electing a non-hero who is certainly no sufficiently competent to lead us”.
Amazing twist of of double-think you have delivered Donna.
That said, since those who were on the Swift-boat team (many who were registered Democrats)served in Vietnam can they not be be considered heroes much like John Kerry the noted Vietnam Veteran who had trashed and smeared and made-up stuff about those Swift-boat men who served honorably?
And what about your trashing a candidate who faithfully served his time in the National Guard?
Now what were you saying about ugliness and short-sightedness?
By Donna, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 4:13 pm
Oh, geez, serving time in the national guard does not a hero make. Oh, wait, many folks are not even certain that he did serve his time in the Guard.
But, I guess you can make him into a hero if you want to. All you have to do in order to make him into a ‘hero’ is to put your immoral spin onto the tens of thousands of deaths for which his team is responsible by destabilizing Iraq. I fail to see what is heroic about using super-power force in choosing to trash another country, failing repeatedly to secure it, and creating immense suffering for those people all of whom had suffered already, not to mention 2,700 dead American soldiers and tens of thousands of American soldiers coming home with brain injuries and lost limbs. Do you consider that competent policy? Sorry, the Bush-led team lost any claim to compentency when they smeared anyone who tried to warn them of potential problems. In particular, theyy blithely ignored El Baradei’s warning about securing the enormous [still sealed] warehouses of plastic explosives at Al Quaaba south of Baghdad. I guess you can figure out for yourself how those unsecured explosives have since been used to created deaths for innocent Iraqis and US soldiers. Such a simple matter of competence, but competence lost to hubris and, yes, short-sightedness. I believe the Bush supporters also chose to try to smear El Baradei, didn’t they?
By Gaius, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 4:17 pm
One could point out here, Donna, that claiming a man who received his honorable discharge after completing his commitment did not do so is a smear. But you knew that.
By Donna, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 5:37 pm
Exactly my point, Gaius. Actually, I made no claim either way about Bush’s serving in the guard….what I did do was to repeat the confusion that lives in the air we breathe once smears are begun, then repeated. It is that confusion about the truth which is the enduring ugliness of smear campaigns, no matter who is the smearee. [Is smearee a word?] So, let us say that Bush received his discharge papers just as Kerry received his medals. But, because of smears, we common folks now live with doubts and confusion about those two having ‘rightfully’ received whatever they received. And, because of the doubts and confusion from smearing, folks more than ever then cling to whatever spin on a shred of ‘truth’ supports their a priori loyalties. The awful divide just gets more entrenched between the parties, and between the citizens of this country, and the rhetoric becomes so sadly ugly with blanket generalizations replacing facts and differing opinions/values. I would be shocked, but relieved if we could heal the ugliness.
By Donna, Monday, 25 September , 2006 @ 6:28 pm
Speaking of ugly, I just read that the GOP candidate for Hyde’s seat, Roskam, thought it alright to smear Duckworth, the DEM candidate, by accusing her of ‘wanting to duck and run’ from Iraq. In case you didn’t know, Duckworth lost both her legs serving in Iraq.