Comment Says More About Reid Than Bush (political name-calling)

http://www.therealitycheck.org ^ | 5/9/05 | Doug Patton

[bitt]

Much has been made recently about the decline of civility in today’s political discourse. The lament is heard from liberal Democrats, moderate Republicans and the national news media, all of which seem to believe that there is ample blame on both sides of the political aisle.

The truth, for anyone willing to see it, is that incivility in Washington is hardly a two-way street. Yes, there are always individuals on both sides willing to engage in rhetorical assassination of their political enemies. On the left, Michael Moore, Al Franken and other Hollywood liberals have joined forces with George Soros, MoveOn.org and the rest of the 527 crowd in attacking George W. Bush. On the right, a few talk radio conservatives and a million obscure bloggers have retaliated with name-calling when talking about the likes of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and the ever-despised Hillary Clinton.

However, when it comes to name-calling by elected officials, conservative Republicans are not even in the same league with their Democrat colleagues on the left. Think of the outrageous statements made by Democrats in the last twenty years. Ted Kennedy’s 1987 speech against “Robert Bork’s America” is a modern classic:

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution.”

Two years ago, Kennedy accused President Bush of concocting the war in Iraq for political gain. Last year, referring to what amounted to hazing of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, he said that Saddam’s torture chambers had “reopened under new management — U.S. management.”

This irresponsible nonsense came from the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, a man who has served in that body for 43 years.

More recently, John Kerry referred to the Bush Administration as “the crookedest bunch” he had ever seen. This from the junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts who, at the time he said it, was the Democrats’ nominee for the highest office in the land.

While running for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination himself, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (now chairman of the Democratic National Committee) advanced the theory that President George W. Bush knew about the September 11, 2001, attacks ahead of time and did nothing to stop it.

Following the historic 1994 congressional elections, which gave Republicans control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in forty years, the senior Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York, equated GOP tax relief proposals with racism.

“They used to say ‘nigger’ and ‘spic,’” Rangel, who is black, said at the time. “Now they just say, ‘Let’s cut taxes.’”

Of course, no one but the most paranoid leftist pays much attention to any of this demagoguery, but it does prove the theory that if you tell a lie often enough, someone may just start to believe it. This may explain why elected Democrats are engaged in some of the most outrageous, over-the-top political rhetoric we have heard in a generation.

All of which brings us to the latest example of how childish the Dems have become in their political discourse. While President Bush is traveling in Europe, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, speaking to a group of Las Vegas high school students, said of the president: “The man's father is a wonderful human being, but I think this guy is a loser.”

Apparently realizing the inappropriate nature of the comments, most news media outlets were quick to point out that Reid immediately phoned the White House and asked Bush advisor Karl Rove to convey his apologies to the president. Such an apology is tantamount to the courtroom antics of an attorney who, while he knows his outrageous comments will be ruled prejudicial to a jury’s deliberations, also knows that once spoken, such comments cannot be disregarded.

Reid offered an inarticulate opinion of the leader of the free world in a clumsy attempt to marginalize him before a crowd of high school students. Such a childish comment says much more about the senator than it does about the president.

Doug Patton is a freelance columnist and political speechwriter who has worked for conservative candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations at the federal, state and local levels. His weekly column can be read in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites. Readers can e-mail him at dpatton@neonramp.com

[paul_fromatlanta]

>>I'm sorry, but it's not even the same thing. Sure...the pundits and the talking-heads all do this; but when it comes to elected politicians, the Democrats are on a level alone. And the reason why (as someone already pointed out) is because the media would never allow a Republican to get away with it. Just look at the way they treated Trent Lott's praise of Thurmond vs. Chris Dodd's praise of Robert Byrd; two very similar situations that were treated completely differently.<<

I think you must be right given the difficulty I had finding counter examples as requested above.

[cwb]

Paul...I spent a couple weeks doing just that to counter an argument from a democrat friend of mine. While there is no shortage of attacks from the peanut gallery, I could find very little about "personal" attacks on Democrats from Republicans.

While names like Lott and Delay did come up, those "attacks" were actually legitimate criticisms of policy. And that's one of the reasons this distinction is even that much more important: The media attempts to make policy disagreements by Republicans a personal matter...or an attack on Democrats and their constituency. There is a BIG difference between the two, especially since Democrats do make it personal.