Democratic invective

Peggy Noonan, as usual, (have I already used that flatter in citing her writing? I bet so..) has written a thoughtful and thought-provoking column (http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/) this week, about the Dem's Dynamic Duo (3-D) of Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton.

I believe I've posted before about Howie the Horrible. Let's look back... Bingo! Here it is: (http://write-minded.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_write-minded_archive.html) Pardon the Ward Churchill aside, if you click the link. To avoid forcing you to do so, here's the salient mention of Dean:

Monday, February 28, 2005
Howard Dean is an angry, little man. A very little man, indeed. I'm thrilled that the leftists in the Democratic Party elected him as their chairman. He'll do wonders for the Republican Party's success in coming elections. The unprincipled rhetoric spewing forth from Dean lately- wait a minute...lately?!... this is all the man has! In a fundraising trip to Lawrence Kansas on Friday, the DNC chairman resurrected the false threat so commonly feared by the paranoid Left, saying "I'm not going to have these right-wingers throw away our right to be tolerant".

It got worse. Using language that many Democrats found just oh-too-polarizing and judgemental when referrring to the bloodthirsty enemies of liberty who fly planes into buildings and saw people's heads off, Dean sized up the political contest between Republicans and his Democrats this way: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good." Somehow, Dean managed to locate a patch of feverswamp on the plains of Kansas. I guess that's not so hard to do when you bring it with you.

Now, Dean contends that Republicans "...have never made an honest living in their lives", that "they all look the same" and "they all behave the same", and are "not very friendly to different kinds of people, they are a pretty monolithic party … it's pretty much a white, Christian party." He also said that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has not been accused of any crime, ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence.

As for Senator Clinton, she claims that Republicans are "intent on abusing power, destroying the United States Senate and undermining our Constitution", trying to create a "dictatorship". And she says "they have no shame...they have never been acquainted with the truth."

Well.

Isn't that statesmanlike!

As Peggy Noonan points out, "Clinton is likely the next Democratic nominee for president. Mr. Dean is the head of the Democratic Party. They are important and powerful. They may one day run the country. It is disturbing that they speak as they do."

It sure is disturbing. And I don't expect we've heard the last of the 3-D. In fact, we may be seeing so much 3-D that we'll all need a little Dramamine to get thru the next primary season.

How do such folks--supposedly well-educated and enlightened, "progressive" and well-traveled as they are-- develop such narrow and bigoted perceptions of their neighbors and fellow citizens, even constituents!? And, that they feel uninhibited enough to voice these unkind characterizations, as if many others are nodding in agreement, doesn't speak well for their respect for the other half of the country that they would govern, if America was foolish enough to give them the chance to do.

Brad