Thursday, June 09, 2005

A Journey To The Dark Side

Peggy Noonan does a thought experiment:

Knowing that, let's do a thought experiment. Close your eyes and imagine this.

President Bush is introduced at a great gathering in Topeka, Kan. It is the evening of June 9, 2005. Ruffles and flourishes, "Hail to the Chief," hearty applause from a packed ballroom. Mr. Bush walks to the podium and delivers the following address.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I want to speak this evening about how I see the political landscape. Let me jump right in. The struggle between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is a struggle between good and evil--and we're the good. I hate Democrats. Let's face it, they have never made an honest living in their lives. Who are they, really, but people who are intent on abusing power, destroying the United States Senate and undermining our Constitution? They have no shame.
But why would they? They have never been acquainted with the truth. You ever been to a Democratic fundraiser? They all look the same. They all behave the same. They have a dictatorship, and suffer from zeal so extreme they think they have a direct line to heaven. But what would you expect when you have a far left extremist base? We cannot afford more of their leadership. I call on you to help me defeat them!"


Imagine Mr. Bush saying those things, and the crowd roaring with lusty delight. Imagine John McCain saying them for that matter, or any other likely Republican candidate for president, or Ken Mehlman, the head of the Republican National Committee.

Can you imagine them talking this way? Me neither. Because they wouldn't.
Messrs. Bush, McCain, et al., would find talk like that to be extreme, damaging, desperate. They would understand it would tend to add a new level of hysteria to political discourse, and that's not good for the country. I think they would know such talk is unworthy in a leader, or potential leader, of a great democracy. I think they would understand that talk like that is destructive to the ties that bind--and to the speaker's political prospects.


The problem is that no comparison is too extreme for the Democrats. No language is out of bounds. Charles Rangel compares Iraq to the Holocost. Janice Rodgers Brown is described as a "racist". The Bush=Hitler comparisons continue to be made over and over.

ShrinkWrapped in his latest post points out how the Democrats and the Left are failing the American people. Instead of presenting the public with alternate ideas or plans to consider, they prefer ad hominem attacks and distortions:

What troubles me as the MSM, left wing Democratic politicians, anti-American NGO's, et al, continue to escalate the noxiousness of their rhetoric and reach, daily, new extremes of despicable bilge is that they are failing in their very necessary function as a "loyal opposition".

They were on the losing side of a national argument/discussion, yet even though they lost the argument they have a crucial role to play. Any government needs an opposition to keep it honest. Without a "loyal opposition" the risk of hubris, corruption, and creeping authoritarianism grows unchecked. Too much of the opposition has become a "disloyal opposition" so committed to harming Bush and our war efforts, that they are willing to lie and distort in ever escalating fashion; that they are making our fight much more difficult seems to not even occur to them. This is disheartening.


This is more than disheartening, this is the evidence that they have no ideas (unless you can count "NO!" hysterically screamed over and over again as an idea)and that they are completely intellectually and morally bankrupt.

The hysterical nature of the Democrat's attacks are reaching the desperate stage. It reminds me of the conclusion of the light-sabre duel between Obi-wan and Anakin in the latest Star Wars movie. You know. The part where Anakin, is lying on the ground burning with both his legs cut off, screaming "I hate you! I hate you!"?

That about sums up the Democrats' pathetic response to not being the "chosen one" after all. Their journey to the dark side is nearly complete.

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