LANNY DAVIS: 'Bigotry and hate aren't just for right-wingers anymore'...
Liberal McCarthyism
BY LANNY J. DAVIS
WASHINGTON -- 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.
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Lanny Davis: Mugged by Reality
by Hugh Hewitt
You really have to check out Lanny Davis’ piece on the Opinion Journal site this morning. In the course of campaigning for Joe Lieberman, Davis discovered, much to his horror, “The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony.”
What’s shocking about Lanny’s article isn’t his discovery of left wing bigotry, especially anti-Semitism. Nor, for that matter, is Lanny’s realization that the left is capable of spewing vast amounts of bile cause for stopping the presses.
What’s interesting about this piece is how, until recent weeks, Davis confesses to having been smugly comfortable in his assumption that the right wing, which he personifies by mentioning the names Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage, was inherently less tolerant and more hateful than the left.
BY LANNY J. DAVIS
WASHINGTON -- 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.
...
Lanny Davis: Mugged by Reality
by Hugh Hewitt
You really have to check out Lanny Davis’ piece on the Opinion Journal site this morning. In the course of campaigning for Joe Lieberman, Davis discovered, much to his horror, “The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony.”
What’s shocking about Lanny’s article isn’t his discovery of left wing bigotry, especially anti-Semitism. Nor, for that matter, is Lanny’s realization that the left is capable of spewing vast amounts of bile cause for stopping the presses.
What’s interesting about this piece is how, until recent weeks, Davis confesses to having been smugly comfortable in his assumption that the right wing, which he personifies by mentioning the names Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage, was inherently less tolerant and more hateful than the left.
posted by Andy W. Rogers | 5:36 PM
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