Posted on 08/08/2006 10:01:51 AM PDT by Uncledave
Davis Doesn't Fly 08/08 12:00 PM I'm intrigued by the bizarre attention so many conservative websites and bloggers are paying to Lanny Davis's silly op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal. See here.
Here's an excerpt from the Davis piece:
My brief and unhappy experience with the hate and vitriol of bloggers on the liberal side of the aisle comes from the last several months I spent campaigning for a longtime friend, Joe Lieberman.
This kind of scary hatred, my dad used to tell me, comes only from the right wing—in his day from people such as the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, with his tirades against "communists and their fellow travelers." The word "McCarthyism" became a red flag for liberals, signifying the far right's fascistic tactics of labeling anyone a "communist" or "socialist" who favored an active federal government to help the middle class and the poor, and to level the playing field.
I came to believe that we liberals couldn't possibly be so intolerant and hateful, because our ideology was famous for ACLU-type commitments to free speech, dissent and, especially, tolerance for those who differed with us. And in recent years—with the deadly combination of sanctimony and vitriol displayed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage—I held on to the view that the left was inherently more tolerant and less hateful than the right.
Now, in the closing days of the Lieberman primary campaign, I have reluctantly concluded that I was wrong. The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony.
Davis smears conservatives generally as intolerant and hateful, using his false characterization as a basis to compare loathsome attacks by liberal bloggers against his friend, Joe Lieberman. He slimes Rush and Ann (Savage, of course, is loathsome) with bloggers who write such things as this:
"Ned Lamont and his supporters need to [g]et real busy. Ned needs to beat Lieberman to a pulp in the debate and define what it means to be an AMerican who is NOT beholden to the Israeli Lobby" (by "rim," posted on Huffington Post, July 6, 2006).
As an aside, no one has been more steadfast and thoughtful in his support of Israel than Rush (indeed, no one has been more intelligent in their exposition of conservatism than Rush). Moreover, George Bush — the Republican president Lanny Davis and his liberal ilk undermine on a daily basis — has been spectacular in his defense of Israel, unlike so many Davis’s fellow Democrats. And while Davis correctly condemns the poison flowing from his own side, this is a serious problem for the Left, not the Right. Our nuts are on the fringes; his nuts run the DNC, their PACs, and their think-tanks.
Davis was a mouthpiece for one of the most corrupt president’s in history. More to the point, Bill Clinton and his wife were specialists at using slurs and personal attacks against their opponents (including numerous women). Davis defended all of it.
We are nothing like the Left.
You are all missing the point here. Lanny Davis is not trying to prove anything or be anything other than the left-wing liberal he is. But there is one characteristic that distinguishes him -- he is Jewish and pro-Israel, and he is finally realizing that the left, especially Jewish-American leftists, have abandoned Israel and are pro-Muslim, pro-Palestine, and pro-Hezbollah.
The current situation will be one of those political intersections which makes strange bedfellows -- leftists like Lanny Davis aligning with evangelican Christians in support of Israel. It won't be the first time such a bizarre alignment happens.
But Lanny finally realizing this shows how clueless he is. The left abandoned Israel long ago. They stopped using logic when considering Middle East events long ago. The left is impulsively pro-Muslim and that includes probably 75% of American Jews.
There was a survey about 10 years ago which asked American Jews, "If you were King and could choose one thing to fix forever, which would it be: Making abortion irrevocably legal, or keeping Israel forever safe?" Sadly, about 2/3 of the respondents (remember, they were all Jewish) selected abortion. The survey sadly noted the fact, that Jews cared more about leftist politics than their ancestral homeland. It also says reams about how many American Jews have no connection with their faith anymore.
Of course, there are countless Biblical perspectives to the abandonment of Israel by American Jews. Fulfilling prophecy is one. But don't get me started.
That is the best way to respond to these idiots that always scream "McCarthy"...tell them to read the Venona Files book, substantiation of McCarthy from the bowels of the KGB archives!!!
Yes. Just try to incarnate the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities today and see how far you get! :o(
Davis is a hack, i think less of the wsj for putting him on a pedestal by allowing his crap to be printed as if it was meaningful.
You might not call yourself a socialist but you still think like one. You want the government to steal my property because (1)you think I have more than I need and (2)you know how to use my property better than I do and (3) it is necessary to give it to others because they "need" it more than I do.
Must've been that "level playing field" that Lanny and his dad worked so hard to build.
BTTT
For the benefit of Mr. Davis...
so·cial·ist
n.
An advocate of socialism.
often Socialist
A member of a political party or group that advocates socialism.
adj.
Of, promoting, or practicing socialism.
Socialist
Of, belonging to, or constituting a socialist party or political group.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
---
so·cial·ism
n.
Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
socialism
n
1: a political theory advocating state ownership of industry
2: an economic system based on state ownership of capital [syn: socialist economy] [ant: capitalism]
Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University
It is clear that the anti-Israel,anti-Semitic forces on the left have taken over. Although it might help them in the short term, it is a death knell for the future, especially '08
The posts from Huffington, Du, and KOS are despicable. The moral equivalence with people on the right is ridiculous.
Posts of that nature would be pulled from FreeRepublic and that vile hatred and racism would neer see the light of day.
We boot our nuts, like Buchanan, out of the party. They hug their nutjobs (Michael Moore, etal) and give them standing ovations.
If Mr. Davis really believes that hate was patented by the right then he has never heard of Whittaker Chambers.
He also has no knowledge whatsoever of the 1960s Ramparts, East Village Other, Berkeley Barb and the plethora of "alternative" media of that era. Ditto the Chicago riots during the Democrat convention. Ditto, "Hey, Hey LBJ how many babies did you kill today."
He also never watched TV or read the major newspapers of the "Fairness Doctrine" era.
News items routinely trashed conservatives as controversial, bigots, racists, hateful and divisive; it was the conservatives' hatred of JFK that caused Oswald to assassinate the president, for example of "reporting."
And anyone objecting to the urban riots, looting, and destruction back then were racists for mentioning law and order -- mocked by the left as "lawn order" and code words for the N word, they taunted.
Apparently Mr. Davis never set foot upon a university campus back then or today.
It's clear to me based upon his interviews, anyone not worshiping the Clintons is a right wing hate monger.
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