Ugly Nutmeg
EmailIt’s gettin’ ugly out there, ‘tween and twixt moderate Democrats and liberal Democrats, facing off against one another in the US Senate primary in Connecticut…
The Huffington Post captures this lack of civility quite well with A RATHER NASTY, RACE-BAITING IMAGE featuring Senator Joe Lieberman as a black-face-wearing Amos and Andy type. From the classic school of "It can’t possibly be offensive when I do it, because I’m a liberal!" which is so popular on the internet these days…
Fierce opposition to a person’s politics are what America is all about. But some of the vitriol on the Left will no doubt help the Right win over some voters. Case in point: Republicans are trying, however fairly, to slam Democratic Senate candidate Jon Tester with various comments from his supporters on the blogosphere….
No one is questioning the Huffington Post’s God-given right to publish anything its writers want… but no one should be surprised when conservatives try to stab Democrats with those same sharp words or images.
jt
CPAC: Romney Struggles to Convince Voters 
Obama Backs Off Birth Control Battle?
Ahem. Ann Coulter? “Let’s go bomb the New York Times” Ann Coulter?
Lieberman-Lamont isn’t about liberals vs. moderates or even so much about Bush’s war. It’s about the Democratic Party acting like a party, instead of having members of the leadership, like Lieberman, acting as enablers of the real radical and hatefilled agenda in this country, which comes from the right.
The Beltway media don’t like this, because it goes against one of their darlings. But out here, beyond Washington, we’re tired of your storyline, thank you very much.
Posted by: Bouldin | August 2, 2006, 1:28 pm 1:28 pm
It’s GETTING ugly out there? Where have you been? I refer you to Lee Atwater (if you remember that far back), Karl Rove, and of course Ann Coulter. And many many others, on both sides. It’s been ugly for a long long time, and you only seem to object to ugliness from the left, when the right seems so much better at it, or perhaps just more experienced. As for your so-called “quote” of “It can’t possibly be offensive when I do it, because I’m a liberal!”, that’s just a broad-based smear and you know it. Your biases are obvious, and you have a right to them. But don’t pretend to be an objective journalist, because you are not.
Posted by: Clay Bobisud | August 2, 2006, 1:36 pm 1:36 pm
Hey, Clay Bobisub, easy. I think Jake is referring only to the current Democratic primary in Connecticut. I’m pretty sure he knows that politics is a nasty business and has been so for some time. And if you’ve been reading the blog (or Salon, or the Washington City Paper, where Jake previously wrote) for any amount of time you’d know that he is an evenhanded critic, taking both the right and left to task, as appropriate.
Posted by: DKNY | August 2, 2006, 1:56 pm 1:56 pm
Jane Hamsher’s polemic against Lieberman in “The Huffington Post” contains some very good points against Lieberman and his positions. Unfortunately, all of the validity of her argument is undermined with that execrable photo accompanying her column. I feel the same sense of embarrassment, shame, and pity for her as I did for former House Minority Whip Robert Michel of Illinois when he expressed his nostalgia for minstrel shows (!).
Politics is indeed a dirty little business, but it doesn’t have to resort to bigotry, does it? Maybe the severe heat wave we’re now experiencing is evaporating everyone’s good sense.
Posted by: chuck | August 2, 2006, 3:32 pm 3:32 pm
Re “Hatred from the Right” comment: Was it a GOP rep who assaulted a Capitol police officer? Is there a Republican to match AL Sharpton, who shows up anywhere there is even a whiff of race with a gas can and a book of matches? How many conservatives joked about assassinating Bill Clinton, or even staged plays like “I’m Going To Kill The President: A Federal Offense” as ran in New York during the 2004 GOP Convention? If I may paraphrase the Bible (I know how much you Liberals HATE that!), before you complain about the speck in my eye, remove the tree trunk from your own. Tapper is right. You are blind only to what you don’t want to see,
Posted by: John Simpson | August 3, 2006, 1:49 pm 1:49 pm
Good, John: no hatred from conservatives (check); it all comes from the left (check); liberals HATE the bible (check). I’m not agreeing, I’m just going down a list of Fox News talking points to see whether you missed anything. Oh, here’s one: Things are going great in Iraq. Couldn’t you have worked that into your e-mail?
Posted by: DKNY | August 3, 2006, 3:00 pm 3:00 pm
Yes, Mr. Tapper, we all have got to admit finally that those nasty, race baiting, vitriolic, hateful writers on HuffPost and all those other extreme, rabid left wing blog sheets are getting just too hard to take. One has simply got to agree with David Broder and his blessed phallanx of Washington belt way absolute truth tellers, and the holy santuary full of newspaper columnists and commentators that those foul mouthed, fire breathing LIBERALS have just gone too far. A national disgrace; someone should shut them up !
But now, give us the smooth, mellow tones and polite discourse of Rush Limbaugh and all those sweet voices on right wing talk radio, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and his fellows on FOX NEWS, and our perennial favorite, Chris Matthews, the hero of his own talk show “Sweet Talk”. Now THEY are the paragons of polity, disgression, honesty, and sweet reason !
But I suppose you have never read or watched any of them or listened to the constant, soothing stream of lovely delivery of Rush or his talk show comrades. Otherwise, you might have eeked out a small word or two about a comparison to those awful baddies in Connecticut and on HuffPost.
You really should get away from all that horrid left wing bad talk and tune in to the reticent opinions and heavenly music of Ann and her comforting brood of conservative commentators.
Or in other words wake up, get out, and find out what’s happening in opinion land. You wanna tell us something reasonably convincing ? You oughta find out what’s going on before you contribute more foul breath to the fiasco that has replaced political discourse, thanks mostly to Murdoch, Rove, Ailes, and an infinite crowd of loudmouths who are fugitives from the Clinton impeachment years. Do I seem vaguely to remember that you were on the opposing side during the 90′s ? What’s happened to the once BALANCED commentaries of Jake Tapper ?
Posted by: Francis Scalzi | August 5, 2006, 12:06 am 12:06 am
Ah yes, the angry left. This is a symptom, Jake, not a cause. I know the daily news business isn’t much for historical perspective, but let’s just go back for, say, the last 15 years. It began with Rush Limbaugh and flowered into a garden of bellicose media figures who bully, name-call, smear, ridicule and humiliate “liberals.” I use that word in quotes because their “liberals” are catch-all bogeymen, the likes of whom I’ve never met in daily life.
Now, wouldn’t any proud liberal be just a bit peeved at being so unfairly maligned? Ignoring these demagogues hasn’t worked; trying to counter their often baseless charges with facts hasn’t worked. So yeah, liberals are understandably frustrated, demoralized and angry.
But to portray liberals as the aggressors whose vitriol will bring a backlash from conservatives would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing.
You sir, need to do your homework.
Posted by: marie houtz | August 5, 2006, 3:26 pm 3:26 pm