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Libeling the Right: The Key to the Left's Success
Townhall.com ^ | January 18, 2011 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 01/18/2011 4:35:36 AM PST by Kaslin

Last week, following the murder of six people and the attempted murder of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, the American people were given a vivid display of the single most important tactic of the left: libeling opponents.

Most Americans have been naively and blissfully unaware of this aspect of the left's arsenal against the right. But now, just as more Americans than ever before understand the left's limitless appetite for political power in an ever-expanding state, more Americans than ever before understand that a key to the left's success is defaming the right.

I do not recall any major American daily attacking another major American daily the way the Wall Street Journal attacked The New York Times last week under the heading "The New York Times has crossed a moral line." I do not recall Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer ever expressing contempt toward a colleague the way he did against The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman last week. Krauthammer ended his Washington Post column "Massacre, then libel" with this sentence: "The origins of Loughner's delusions are clear: mental illness. What are the origins of Krugman's?"

People are awakening to the seminal fact of left-wing success: The only way the left can succeed in America is by libeling the right. Only 20 percent of Americans label themselves liberal, let alone left. How, then, do Leftists get elected? And why don't more Americans call themselves conservative when, in fact, so many share conservatives' values?

The answer to both questions is that through its dominance of the news media, entertainment media and educational institutions, the left has been able to successfully demonize the right for at least half a century.

The left rarely convinces Americans to adopt its views. What it does is create a fear of the right that influences many Americans to align themselves with the left.

For example, most Americans want to retain the man-woman definition of marriage. Even most voters in liberal Californians want to. The left has not been able to convince even Californians to redefine marriage to include members of the same sex. So what the left did was to declare as "haters" all those who wanted California to retain the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. Proposition 8 became "Prop. Hate."

But the Left's modus operandi was never as apparent as it was this past week when it took a tragic mass killing of innocents by a violent mentally ill individual and transformed it -- within hours -- into an attack on the decency of the Right: specifically Sarah Palin, the tea party, Fox News and talk radio.

The same left, led by The New York Times, that warned against making any quick assumptions that Islam had played any role in Maj. Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 people and wounding of 30 others at Fort Hood, immediately declared that the Arizona murders were largely a result of a "climate of hate" induced by Palin and other conservatives.

It wasn't true. They knew it wasn't true. And, yes, it was a libel.

But when you control all the major news media, Hollywood, much of the rest of the culture and most of the high schools and colleges, how are most people one supposed to realize that it is not a valid description of the right?

What makes last week different is this: The left, for the first time, does not have the same monopoly over mass information, and the Republican Party is no longer emasculated. There is talk radio, there is the Internet, there is Fox News and there is a vigorous conservative Republican Party. So, when the left unleashed its libel against the right, claiming that it was responsible for a "climate of hate" that produced Jared Loughner, to its shock, America did not lie down and believe it. Many millions did, as usual. But for those with eyes to see, it was a false accusation, and for many, for the first time, it provided a clear view into how the left operates.

As it becomes ever more obvious that Loughner's crimes had nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to do with conservatives, the left will do three things: change the subject by criticizing Palin's use of the term "blood libel," (a term whose use by Palin was honorably defended by Professor Alan Dershowitz, a prominent Jewish liberal); deny it ever really blamed the right for the Loughner's crimes (hoping, with good reason, that Americans have a short memory); and continue to blame the right for creating the "climate of hate" that the left itself has created.

That is why it is important for conservatives and honorable liberals not to allow Americans to forget what the left did last week. It is the key to giving conservatives the good name they deserve. And it is the key to giving the left the name it deserves.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: giffords; left; libel; prager; tucson
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1 posted on 01/18/2011 4:35:37 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Love Prager. Thanks. I cannot listen to him anymore as my radio at work doesn’t get the station he is on here in the Phoenix area.


2 posted on 01/18/2011 4:40:27 AM PST by originalbuckeye
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To: Kaslin

Thank God people are starting to recognize the true “Hate Mongers” in this country.


3 posted on 01/18/2011 4:43:36 AM PST by Panzerlied ("We shall never surrender!")
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To: Panzerlied

Indeed, and it’s about time people are waking up


4 posted on 01/18/2011 4:45:45 AM PST by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Kaslin
One of these days the politicians on our side might “get it”. Maybe something will “click”.

A good example to bring up is the seating for the SOTU address.

What the people want is for the new Republican House to be seated together as a show of solidarity with the people that elected them. It is the visual, a powerful message to the voters.

I have seen many on short interviews on TV that are purposely asked if they support mingling with the other side. Many beat around the bush and hum ho for FEAR they will be looked at as uncivil.

Wrong move republicans. Don't’ let the left set the narrative. They are doing this to weaken you and the perception that the voters have of you.

The GOP has been given a chance to really lead. So do it. LEAD and set the tone.

5 posted on 01/18/2011 4:52:44 AM PST by dforest
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To: Kaslin

Well that’s the thing isn’t it?

Democrats hold views about Republicans which have been spoon fed to them since grade school AND the misinformation and bias has been systematically and perpetually reinforced through the MSM...PERIOD!!

Republicans hold views about Democrats resulting from an exacting and empirical assessment. WE look at their words, deeds, the candidates they support, the political/social models they have chosen for us AND their lack of proper regard for America... etc.

Which group has made the more intellectually mature and honest appraisal????


6 posted on 01/18/2011 4:54:51 AM PST by SMARTY (Conforming to non-conformity is conforming just the same.)
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To: indylindy
re: the seating for the SOTU address

Let's hope the Libs’ little ploy to spin their huge loss does not get very far.

Got to remember though, one of the tools in the MFM’s bag is to present something as a done-deal, when it's nothing more than how they would like it to be. No one lines to be left alone, swinging in the breeze. They will present the seating trick as though it's settled, as though only a few ‘loners’ won't be joining the demonstration of ‘unity’ at the SOTUS. And if they can, they will be sure to present TV coverage in such a way as to accentuate those who are in an active state of Kumbaya while ignoring the others.

It's going to get worse before it gets better. The next step for the MFM/Lefty cabal will be desperation. It will set in as they realize the audience knows the rabbit is really up the magician's sleeve, and that the pretty girl in the box is really two girls.

7 posted on 01/18/2011 5:08:33 AM PST by jwparkerjr (It's the Constitution, Stupid!)
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To: Kaslin

Truer words were never spoken. We have over forty years of evidence. They do it because it works.


8 posted on 01/18/2011 5:09:20 AM PST by popdonnelly (Democrats are funny people)
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To: Panzerlied

bttt


9 posted on 01/18/2011 5:14:35 AM PST by Matchett-PI (Trent Lott on Tea Party candidates: "As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them" 7/19/10)
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To: Kaslin

The Left cannot stand on its ideology or its record. The first is appealing only to blocs that refuse to see beyond the superficial rhetoric of economic equality. And the latter is a history of failure, misery, and bloodshed.

Lacking a viable message supportive of their own agenda, they’re always reduced to advancing a message critical of their enemy. Conservatives are all flat-earth, witch-burning rustics whose primitive notions of government rest on a sort of unenlightened social Darwinism.


10 posted on 01/18/2011 5:17:44 AM PST by IronJack (=)
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To: Kaslin

Bump for later.


11 posted on 01/18/2011 5:18:20 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: jwparkerjr

Another powerful visual will be those RINO Senators sitting there with the RATs.

Right there in front of us on display. A great reminder to those that keep reelecting the leftists with an R (or little r) heh, by their names.

That will make it much easier to see who goes on our notepads for defeat in the coming 2-4 years.


12 posted on 01/18/2011 5:27:40 AM PST by dforest
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To: Kaslin

The fact that the Right didn’t just lie down when these scurrilous accusations were made perplexed the Left and, I believe, led them to increase the intensity of their attacks. The Left has done serious damage to itself, but doesn’t realize it yet.


13 posted on 01/18/2011 5:30:39 AM PST by Arm_Bears (I'll have what the gentleman on the floor is drinking.)
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To: indylindy

Pay out the rope to the RINOS. They will hang themselves.


14 posted on 01/18/2011 5:42:47 AM PST by Redleg Duke (We didn't limit out, but we nailed a bunch of RATS!)
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To: indylindy

re: much easier to see who goes on our notepads for defeat in the coming 2-4 years

Absolutely! And it will be much easier to use the threat of an election day drumming out because the last round showed it can be done. In years past politicians knew they could simply ignore threats of being unelected because it happened so seldom. That’s changing, thank God, literally!

The possibility of having to make their way in the cruel hard world where you and I live is real for the first time in the careers of a lot of politicians. And well it should be.

Hopefully, 2010 will go down as the year the voters began to feel their oats. The example made of several incumbents, by either delivering a primary loss or scaring the hell out of them, will go a long way in making them appreciate the phrase “consent of the governed!”


15 posted on 01/18/2011 5:46:52 AM PST by jwparkerjr (It's the Constitution, Stupid!)
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To: jwparkerjr

Absolutely. Nice post!

I can guarantee you Dick Lugar will be sharing the seats with the Dems.

People here in Indiana are determined to see his forced retirement in 2012.


16 posted on 01/18/2011 5:53:29 AM PST by dforest
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To: Arm_Bears
The left cannot just rest on the good graces of the right any longer.

Beware of the long suffering caring man who wakes to see he is being attacked maliciously and relentlessly absent remorse.....swift, surgical and overwhelming justice are his.

Americans are on the verge of the wake-up stage. The tsunami of awareness has barely gotten started.

17 posted on 01/18/2011 5:59:15 AM PST by Earthdweller (Harvard won the election again...so what's the problem.......? Embrace a ruler today.)
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To: Kaslin

Bravo Dennis, again.


18 posted on 01/18/2011 6:01:59 AM PST by Travis McGee (EnemiesForeignAndDomestic is on Kindle now)
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To: Kaslin

There is talk radio, there is the Internet, there is Fox News - AND there are so many of us who have stood up and spoken out as Tea Partiers that most everyone knows many of us personally.

They’ve seen us at town hall meetings, they’ve seen us in peaceful demonstrations, they’ve seen us at the Lincoln Memorial honoring our heroes.

We’re neighbors and friends and coworkers and family, and they know that what the scurrilous Left is saying about us simply isn’t true.


19 posted on 01/18/2011 6:10:10 AM PST by Wife of D28Man
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To: Kaslin

Good article by Prager.


20 posted on 01/18/2011 9:07:42 AM PST by KansasGirl
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