Lowering The Standards
The Opinion Journal takes a hard look at the new, lower standards the Democrats have for political discourse and find them lacking. MoveOn's McCarthy moment is only one manifestation of those new, abysmal standards. Instead of disagreements, debates, arguments or discussions over how to address issues the new standard is to call anyone opposing you a liar and halt all discourse.
In an editorial on Sunday, the New York Times, after saying that President Bush "isn't looking for the truth, only for ways to confound the public," asserted that "General Petraeus has his own credibility problems." We read this as an elision from George Bush, the oft-accused liar on WMD and all the rest, to David Petraeus, also a liar merely for serving in the chain of command. With this editorial, the Times establishes that the party line is no longer just "Bush lied," but anyone who says anything good about Iraq or our effort there is also lying. As such, the Times enables and ratifies MoveOn.org's rhetoric as common usage for Democrats.
Late last week, for instance, we heard it said of General Petraeus that, "He's made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual." This was from Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate……..
…….Can this really be the new standard of political rhetoric across the Democratic Party? There was a time when the party's institutional elites, such as the Times, would have pulled it back from reducing politics to all or nothing. They would have blown the whistle on such accusations. Now they are leading the charge.
Under these new terms, public policy is no longer subject to debate, discussion and disagreement over competing views and interpretations. Instead, the opposition is reduced to the status of liar. Now the opposition is not merely wrong, but lacks legitimacy and political standing. The goal here is not to debate, but to destroy.
It isn't really a new strategy. But it certainly appears to be the new gold standard for the Democrats, led by the increasingly vicious hard left authoritarians (calling them 'liberal' is to mangle the language even further than it already is). One hopes that the American public sends the message that they are sick of this increasingly juvenile standard of politics.
By FedUp, Tuesday, 11 September , 2007 @ 7:44 am
{Late last week, for instance, we heard it said of General Petraeus that, “He’s made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual.” This was from Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate……..}
So, Harry… where does that leave YOU and the rest of your cohorts? Shall we start a list of all the statments that you (collectively) have made that arent factual - e.g The war is lost???
Get a grip on reality or GET OUT! Your rhetoric is counter-productive to the health of this country! You, sir, are a jackass!
By daveinboca, Tuesday, 11 September , 2007 @ 8:55 am
The New York Times has been an active supporter of enemies of the United States since Walter Duranty won the Pulitzer for his favorable reporting of the Stalin Purge Trials in the thirties. The NYT is a tabloid for treason that reportedly only charged Move-On one-third the usual price for the vicious smear on Petraeus. Pinch Sulzberger should be investigated and if the Fairness Doctrine has any meaning at all, the print media should be treated the same as talk radio.
The Soros-cide Move-On Marxists want a nanny-state filled with passive robots whose freedoms are vastly outnumbered by govt regs and diluted by a harsh taxation regime. To attain this goal, they must eliminate America’s military power projection capability. These deluded misguided gullible ideologues actually believe that taking a stand against Islamofascism in Iraq STRENGTHENS the Islamist radicals. It may cause a few conversions to AQ among young unstable types like Adam Gadahn and thousands of undereducated madrasa grads. But they might have gone the AQ route anyway, willy-nilly Iraq. Move-On and the Soros-cide left are simply ridiculous and their ad demonstrates desperation as the Dems find that common sense is better than hysterical fabulist prevarications from the Kossack Huff-Puff Left.
Whew! I’ve got more to say at http://www.daveinboca.blogspot.com, including a riff on the McCarthy Hearings in the ’50s written before the Boston Globe & Blue Crab did the same excellent comparison.
By daveinboca, Tuesday, 11 September , 2007 @ 8:57 am
Harry Reid is walking talking proof that the Peter Principle is alive and still functioning in the US Senate. He is so far above his natural skill set that he makes Nancy Pelosi look normal in a Burka in Damascus! He reminds me of Churchill’s line about a Socialist candidate for PM, “a sheep in sheep’s clothing.”
By mockinbird, Tuesday, 11 September , 2007 @ 10:53 am
I sit here just wondering about the bolsheviks in Russia in 1915 or so.
A considerable number of Russian people thought the bolsheviks were enlightened, “intellectual” and “concerned about the poor”. But the Bols couldn’t
get into the total power, and became very frustrated.
While alot of the Bols had considerable money, they
couldn’t buy their way in either.
So, they finally used guns and bombs and poison.
By jpe, Tuesday, 11 September , 2007 @ 12:01 pm
Notably, no one is rebutting the charges that he’s lying or stretching the truth.
That tells me all I need to know.
By Gaius, Tuesday, 11 September , 2007 @ 1:04 pm
I think Joe Gandelman covered that quite nicely:
“To mince no words, this is the kind of language that cause us to delete comments on this blog and to even ban commenters. It undermines the rest of moveon.org’s message and, frankly, when some people (like yours truly) see it, we stop reading the rest of it.”
http://themoderatevoice.com/politics/15047/with-enemies-like-this-general-petraeus-gets-new-friends/
Nobody is going to legitimize any part of that viciousness by responding to it. MoveOn is its own worst enemy.