“I don’t fall for the ‘guilt-by-association’ aka McCarthyism claims, that because the right has a fringe therefore the whole right is wrong. The left has its fringe, the Castro/Chavez-loving crowd, the ‘kill all SUVs’ eco-extremists, the anti-population nuts, the impeach Bush BDS folks, the Socialist Democrats. If the other shoe fits, then the entire Democrat party is a bunch of communists … which gets us back to the kinds of hyperbole you are (rightly) objecting to. ” (comment #3)

“That is no different on the left. You’ve just describe the proggo-sphere in reverse.” (comment #13)

“Some on the right are reading Alinsky and taking the tactics of the left seriously.” (comment #30)

“It’s a wonderful label, and us classical Jeffersonian liberals are ticked off that the leftists and socialists stole it from the real classical liberals way back when. (New Deal era?) Then again, leftists and socialists are natural thieves, hijacking labels left and right.” (comment #31)

I won’t bother with the rest. I have no doubt that what I’m trying to point out is completely escaping you, but perhaps some other readers of this thred might notice what I noticed.

“My point has been that the Left has successfully used certain tactics in the past 8 years and prior, and that some on the right are picking up on those tactics.

You are free to only condemn right-wingers for frothing in manners that ape what left-wingers were doing in the previous Bush administration if that is your wish.”

So the bad behavior from the Left is because they are the originators of the bad bad behavior. The bad behavior of the Right is aping the bad behavior of the Left — so the behavior from the Right has its genesis in the Left.

Left bad = Left bad.

Right bad = Left bad.

No, I think I read you right.

Communism is not the same thing a Socialism.

” It’s always been very easy to fool people who refuse to educate themselves.”
This is ironically true.

Katie: So Republicans talking about ACORN - an organization which these ‘nuts’ have exposed as enablers of illegal activities - makes you support Democrats more?

and Obamacare? So a Republican or conservative pointing out all the taxes, controls, mandates, lack of oversight, lack of CBO scoring, and complete political powermongering to shove this bad bill through the Congress, makes you jump on the bandwagon to support it?

Your comment makes no sense at all. Totally illogical.

Methinks some Obama voters are trying to ex post rationalize their mistaken votes by shutting out criticism of the President. Keep the fingers in your ears, O-philes.

Dittos on this, 100%.

There is a clear ideological bent to Obama and his administration that was not in evidence in Clinton’s triangulating administration, even though CLinton clearly tacked to the left on some things and put liberals in courts, etc.

It was clear the Democrats THEMSELVES picked up on this, as Obama got Kennedy endorsements and picked up the more progressive/left-wing votes, and Hillary the more ‘traditional Democrat’ votes when the primary became a 1on1 fight.

For Democrats to pretend otherwise NOW - AFTER the LBJ/FDR ‘things won’t be the same again’ claims - is to be too cute by half. They HOPED for Obama to be a major shift to the left for the whole country.

Now, after he has ALREADY proposed the largest power grabs in American history, they are going to pretend he’s not a leftist but a moderate?

Someone please clue me in on when the Goldwater or Eisenhower Republicans ever:
- Appointed a NAMBLA-supporting radical in charge of ’safe schools’
- Put a guy in favor of race-based quotas in charge of the DOJ
- Decided to mandate/tax everyone in America who chose not to buy health insurance and advocated a huge expansion in the Govt reach into healthcare sectore
- Proposed massive tax increases and regulatory schemes on energy
- passed a Federal budget that swallowed more than a quarter of GDP and adds $9 trillion in deficits, doubling our debt load
- pushed takeovers of car companies and shovelled billions in tax dollars out the door with a giveaway for old cars
- Pushed for bills to be passed hurredly without even reading them
- Called those who disputed portions of his agenda proposals ‘liars’ for daring to point out troubling provisions in them
- Called critics of the President ‘racist’

Democrats in DC today are a clown show of leftists, liberal elitist social engineers, Chicago Boy corrupt operators, and party hacks with knee-jerk animus to ‘flyover’ conservative America. Any resemblance to the reasonableness of either party of 40 years ago is a figment of hope over change.

The Republican right has lose that veneer of politesse and noblesse oblige that made them nice losers to the Democrats. If that’s a vice, it’s a minor one compared to the bullying of the Democrats. And, as Goldwater said “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”. He’d be supporting the Tea Party crowd if he was around to witness it.