From David Horowitz, an editorial that originally appeared in Salon Magazine.

I don't agree with everything he says, but note the last paragraph in particular. That's how political spin -- or should we start calling the negative version "anti-spin?" (or by the original name: McArthyism) -- works.

---

A GRAPHIC IMAGE in the Los Angeles Times by its editorial cartoonist, "Conrad," summarizes in the most succinct fashion the ugly spectacle unfolding on the left side of the political spectrum, where a compulsive frenzy has seized opponents of the new Bush Administration and driven them off the deep end. The title of Conrad's cartoon is "Some of Bush's Cabinet Choices" (LA Times January 3, 2001). In the frame are pictured five older white males (one actually doddering) whom the artist has dressed in suits and dunce caps. A sixth male, completing the line-up, is in full Ku Klux Klan hood and robe. Even the terminally challenged will get it: Republicans are racist idiots.

Does it ever occur to liberals who dream up and publish this poisonous stuff that they have become the perfect mirror-images of what they profess to fear: hate-mongers, witch-hunters and racists? (Or can you even imagine that the L.A. Times would consider printing a cartoon that showed six female, black and Hispanic Bush cabinet nominees wearing dunce caps? In our politically corrected culture, there is a license to assault only whites and males this way.

Conrad, by the way, is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Does character assassination, even as low as this, have an impact? You bet. A liberal friend of mine -- a Hollywood person who wouldn't be able to tell you the name of the governor of California let alone the Attorney General nominee -- called me the other day to say: "I hear Bush has nominated a Ku-Kluxer to his cabinet."

The facts are these: Bill Clinton sent 28 African-American nominees to the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation as federal judges. One nomination was withdrawn. Of the other 27, Ashcroft voted to confirm 26. As Missouri Governor, he signed into law a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King Day, made the home of Scott Joplin Missouri's only historic site honoring an African-American, created an award honoring black educator George Washington Carver, named a black woman to a state judgeship, and led the fight to save Lincoln University which was founded by black soldiers.

As for qualifications: Leaving aside the fact that Democrats lost the election and that the Republicans who won have different views about policy, John Ashcroft was Attorney General and then Governor of the state of Missouri. He was a United States Senator, and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for six years. He is an honest man and an ethical public servant. He never gave orders that incinerated 80 innocent people, mainly women and children, in Waco, Texas. He has never been accused of obstructing justice, or failing to investigate situations in which, say, a Vice President of the United States appeared to at least three different Justice Department officials to have lied under oath. He never had sex with a college-age government employee, or any government employee. He never committed perjury before a grand jury. He was never accused of taking bribes or misusing government funds, as at least three of the last Administration's cabinet members have been accused of doing. In a lifetime of public service, he has never displayed racial, gender or ethnic prejudice towards any group. What is there in this man's record to which one could reasonably or properly (as opposed to politically) object?

Opposing a nominee because you disagree with his or her political positions is one thing. To slander them as bad human beings - implying that they are racists, homophobes or misogynists even though there is no basis other than your disagreement with their politics for saying so is quite another. This is the kind of gutter attack that was on display during the presidential campaign in the NAACP's reprehensible TV ads insinuating that George Bush defended lynchers and, in effect, killed James Byrd a second time. The NAACP is quickly becoming the National Association For Defaming Other People.

The left, of course, is aware of the bad company it is keeping as it witch-hunts opponents on the basis of stray quotes, garbled positions and remote associations. So it often pretends it is doing something else. Thus NAACP president Kweisi Mfume claimed to be against Ashcroft only because he had "consistently opposed civil rights." As a Senator, Mfume said "he received a grade of 'F' on each of the last NAACP report cards because of his anti-progressive voting record, having voted to approve only three of 15 legislative issues supported by the NAACP and other civil rights groups." But "progressive" and "civil rights," as used by Mfume and the NAACP turn out to be code words for "left" and "far left." Among the 12 legislative issues that Ashcroft and the NAACP disagree on are Clinton's impeachment (two votes on this), an expanded role for the federal government in education, a raise in the minimum wage and gun show background checks. Disagree with us and we'll tag you as a racist.

The gay left's attack on Secretary of the Interior nominee Gail Norton is an extreme instance of this method. Norton is a libertarian who hasn't an anti-gay bone in her body. The Secretary of the Interior has little or no relation to specifically gay issues. But the gay left, as part of the lynch mob coalition, is out to do their part by attempting to destroy her public career. Why the gay left? Because there's a pretext available. She supported a law in Colorado (the famous Proposition 2), which the gay left didn't like. In opposing her nomination, its spokespersons are accusing her of supporting legislation that would take away the civil rights of gays. This is a lie and the gay left knows it. The issue in Colorado was not over civil rights but over special rights exclusive to gays (as opposed to heterosexuals). What is wrong with special rights? Well, until the special rights crowd came along, every sexually transmitted disease was treated with standard public health methods like testing and contact tracing. But the gay left demanded special rights for gays not to be tested, and not to have their sexual partners warned after they were diagnosed with AIDS. They demanded the right to keep the public sexual gymnasia, which functioned as incubators of infection, open as centers of "gay liberation." The consequences? An epidemic that has killed two hundred thousand young Americans, mostly gay, and is still going strong.

The leftwing smear-attacks on all Bush's conservative nominees -- John Ashcroft, Gail Norton and Linda Chavez - have been as bad as anything Senator Joseph McCarthy ever attempted and with even less foundation (e.g., the vast majority of McCarthy's targets actually were pro-Soviet, whereas the targets of the "civil rights" crowd are not the least bit anti-black). A column in the Los Angeles Times by Clinton shill Robert Scheer (January 2, 2001) had this to say about the Attorney General nominee: "Ashcroft's hysterical attacks on Clinton [Scheer is referring to the fact that Ashcroft supported impeachment] and his fervent embrace of the right-wing social agenda led him to explore a bid for the presidency as the ultra-right alternative to Bush." (Scheer himself is an ultra-leftist, a former acolyte of Lin Piao, the author of Long Live the Victory of the People's War) Like the other character assassins in the pack, Scheer's motives are transparent. He doesn't like the election result and is determined to bloody the Administration and weaken it from the start.

As former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich explains in the Times (December 29, 2000) this is all part of a "civil war" that the left has been waging for decades. Reich traces it back to 1987 "when Ronald Reagan's nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate after an extensive media campaign by his opponents." It was more than a media campaign. It was a witch-hunt that involved rifling through his garbage for personally incriminating material, subpoenaing his bills from a video store to see if he could be accused of watching pornographic tapes, and baldfaced lies told by Teddy Kennedy and Gregory Peck -- the latter in TV ads that depicted Bork as a heartless reactionary who wanted to take away the rights of every vulnerable group in the population. Conceded Reich: "George W. Bush may sincerely want to 'reach out' to congressional Democrats, but the Democrats don't want to reach back."

The coalition that has geared up to misrepresent, tar and feather Bush's conservative nominees is exactly the same lynch mob that conducted the most disgraceful campaign of character assassination in American history against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, just ten years ago. The coalition includes the whole familiar civil-rights gang, including Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice, Ralph Neas of People For The American Way, Kate Michelman of NARAL, Patricia Ireland of NOW, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Kweisi Mfume.

The decade that has gone by since the attack on Thomas ought to have proved to everyone by now that these racial and sexual McCarthyites are unprincipled hypocrites and liars. It is now obvious, for example, that every charge they made against Thomas to smear his reputation was made in bad faith. At the time Thomas was nominated to a seat on the Supreme Court, he had been an upstanding civil servant for twenty years. He had risen to great heights from great adversity, growing up in a dirt shack in Georgia when the South was still segregated. In all that time, he had not had a single blemish on his public record. But that didn't faze the Democrats who went straight for his jugular.

The pretext they employed was that, in a private conversation ten years earlier, he had used off-color language to a Yale civil rights lawyer. Just think of it! The left was beside itself. They said he had committed an outrage against a helpless female who was unable to speak up for herself. They said Thomas had abused his position as her employer and also his power. They said he had committed a crime against all women. They called for his head in the name of all women. In the end, they were unable to defeat his nomination, but they succeeded in staining his reputation and neutralizing him as a public force - which is their agenda against Bush and his nominees today.

But the same lynch mob reacted very differently a few years after the Thomas episode when Bill Clinton was caught having actual sex with a White House employee. His victim was not a Yale lawyer with an expertise in civil rights, but a confused college-age intern. It was also revealed that Clinton had groped a widow, demanded a sexual favor from a state employee and forced himself on a campaign worker. Unlike Clarence Thomas, who refused to attack the character of his accuser, Clinton and his agents systematically set out to destroy the reputations of each of his female targets as they came forward to speak about their abuse. He even went so far as to lie in a court of law to carry out this assault.

But when confronted with Clinton's sexual abuses, the same pack of feminists, civil rights activists and liberals who had slandered Thomas, said: "It's OK." "He's just a man." "Boys will be boys." They did more than give Clinton a pass. They leaped to his defense. Congressional Democrats who preened themselves on being the social conscience of the nation went to the wall to keep a guilty male in power. They said: "It's only sex."

Through a long process of self-degradation, a once venerable civil rights coalition has transformed itself into a national shakedown operation - one that specializes in witch-hunts for the Democratic Party. (A witch-hunt, after all, is merely a form of political shakedown). The process is simple. Like Senator McCarthy, you dig up an interview that someone may have given to an obscure magazine a long time ago. Then you find a quote from an article that appeared in the magazine, in an even more distant past, that seems, on the surface, offensive. You use this to accuse your target of being a closet "racist." Repeat the lie and the word "racist" enough times, and you will find millions of half-awake citizens who will soak up the message sooner. And they will spread the word: "Bush has appointed a Ku-Kluxer to his cabinet."

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

Answers

Hmmmmm.....sounds a whole lot like what the Bush campaign and the "liberal media" did to Gore (especially that last line you very kindly emphasized).

It sure sucks when it's on the other foot, doesn't it?

I'm not going to debate you (or Flint or any other "right-leaner"); just wanted to point out how hilarious this is now...........

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

McCarthy was a Republican, wasn't he?

Regardless, this is eactly the same treatment White suffered under Ashcroft. Though White had sustained the death penalty in a greater percentage of cases than the average judge Ashcroft himself had appointed, Ashcroft cynically painted him as being opposed to the death penalty because of one particular case when he found the accused had not had adequate representation.

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

Yeah, McCarthy was a Republican. I thought he was a Democrat for the longest time, but the Senate Website sez otherwise.

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

LET HIM WHO HAS [NO] SIN---CAST THE FIRST STONE!!!

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

Happy Birthday,Patricia.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

Trish,

The best people are born in January. (My birthday is the 25th.[g])

I don't want to "Debate," either. I do wonder where it ends. Going all the way back to Jim Wright's plea to stop the "politics of personal destruction," through the Clarence Thomas hearings, the repeated attacks on Clinton for every imaginable thing and right up to the present, two wrongs don't make a right.

Repeat: two wrongs don't make a right.

At some point, at least a few people on BOTH sides have got to have the integrity to say, "enough." It's time for it to end. We also have to choose WHEN we want it to finally happen. I say it's long overdue.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

Overdue is right, but do not expect people who have been ragged against for so long to sit down and not do the same thing back when their time comes. It is totally hypicritical for Bush and his camp who lied over and over by saying things like"Gore says he invented the internet" to turn around and expect people to forgive and forget just because they have decided it is time for it to stop. Because the truth is, if Gore had won, the republicans would be doing a hell of a lot more than their opposition is doing now. They would not have stopped, they would have continued as before. So the BS factor is realized by everyone with this phoney talk of Bush about bipartisenship. He is really asking others to shut up and do what he want them to do. No one has the right to ask that, especially a president. The congress is there to represent the people who elected them, not kiss the ass of the president and do what he wants them to do. The sooner Bush finds this out the better off he will be. And you can hope, but do not expect those who have had to put up with abuse to suddenly sit down and "get over" it because the leader of the group whio did it to them tells them to.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

Thanks, Anita; thanks, Stephen :-) It was Monday (it actually snowed/sleeted/hailed/freezing-rained for about three minutes Monday afternoon -- it was weird). Had a nice day.

(Before I respond, I thought you might be interested in a little "Ashcroft/Vietnam Draft" history. Seems Ashcroft had a pretty weak excuse for legally evading Vietnam ..... In Ashcroft's past, a Vietnam deferment. Gee, I wonder why this one isn't front-page news like it was for Clinton? Then again, the "liberal media" seemed to "overlook" Bush's, um, "military service" as well.)

I knew you'd come back with that, Stephen (not saying that's a *bad* thing), and to a large extent I wholeheartedly agree. BUT.....

[Rant On]

After eight years of constant, mostly unwarranted Clinton-bashing (which, BTW, illustrated "witch-hunt" even better than the definition given above) by some of the loudest R-Hypocrites the civilized world has ever seen (<---author's embellishment), I am completely enjoying this one right now, and will savor it for a couple more days, at least.

After an entire campaign of constant, mostly unwarranted Gore-bashing by the Republicans and the so-called "liberal media", illustrating to a TEE the passage you highlighted above, I am completely enjoying this one right now, and will savor it for a couple more days, at least.

After an election process that lasted over a month longer than it should have, having to listen to so many posters on this and Unk's board, the so-called "liberal media" and every R-Hypocrite crawling out from under his/her rock to declare that Gore was trying to "steal" the election, yet not allowing for every vote to be counted, and then having the Supreme Hypocrites for all intents and purposes APPOINT GWB (and oh-so-cleverly sealing the usage of their "opinion" so that it can never again be used as a basis for a decision), I am completely enjoying this one right now, and will savor it for a couple more days, at least.

After having to deal with so many posters on this and Unk's board for months, with their constant, mostly unwarranted Dem/Liberal-bashing, the selective indignation wherein they all seem to conveniently overlook any little thing done wrong by a Republican (e.g., Iran-Contra), not to mention virtually ignoring any and every instance of potential impropriety, I am completely enjoying this one right now, and will savor it for a couple more days, at least.

Chavez (R-Hypocrite) is toast; with any luck, Ashcroft (R-Hypocrite) will be next. Like ducks in a shooting gallery. LOL.

Then we'll see what the next four years of The Great Uniter (snicker) brings. (Bi-partisanship my butt. If a Dem had appointed the Dem equivalent of this motley crew, the cries would be heard from here to the ends of the solar system.) Hopefully, there are still some Dems in Congress (in addition to the Black Caucus) who have the cojones to stand up to ALL the R-Hypocrites.

Oh, and you do realize that every little mis-step by any R-Hypocrite will be magnified beyond all recognition, don't you? Poetic Justice in (probably) its not-so-finest form. Hey, payback's a bitch.

Childish? Of course. Vindictive? Absolutely.

Satisfying? Positively.

[Rant Off]

And one more thing; seems I was wrong about something I posted to your board. It just doesn't "hurt me to my core" to sit here and say, "George W. Bush is NOT my president". I thought it would bother me; but it doesn't really bother me at all. Heh, I may even break my "no-bumper-stickers" rule for this one.

Funny thing about all of this, Stephen. I started out last summer not really caring who won. Didn't see all that much difference in the Two Major Parties' Two Major Idiots. But then I began seeing way too much "partisanship" and out-right LIES come out of the Reps; and no one seemed to be counteracting any of it -- LEAST OF ALL the so-called "liberal media". Heh, these guys were CALLING THE BUSH CAMPAIGN for their "stories". And this little tidbit was conveniently overlooked by all the so-called Upstanding Moral American Republicans.

I can't help but wonder how many others like me were pushed towards the Dems because of this. I suppose I should thank you all -- I know the DNC does :-).

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

What a coincidence, my birthday was yesterday.

I agree to a point. After six years of unparalleled lows in mudslinging, the Republicans don't have any place to cry about getting some specks on their clothes. You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you were only kidding.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

http://www.barf.org/ashcroft/

LINK

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

I'll agree with Tarzan here; in politics people on all sides fight to gain the moral high ground, because it's easier to throw mud from the high ground. The goal has always been short-term advantage, and the weapons have always been half-truths and other manipulations of public perception. I doubt this will ever change.

But I can't agree with Patricia's claim that either side holds a monopoly on such techniques, or even an advantage. Politics are amoral, as always practiced by any successful politician. Patricia says she sees partisanship and lies (no kidding!), but only sees them coming from the side she disagrees with. Well, here we have a Free Home Demonstration of why they do it in the first place -- because people gleefully engage in selective blindness, and can be polarized with little effort.

Patricia is asking the wrong question. She shouldn't ask "Is the opposition a bunch of conniving bastards?" because the answer had better be yes and because this question prevents her from looking at her own guys. Much better to ask "Which conniving bastards, if successful, will do less harm?" And the answer is usually, those who want to do less of anything to begin with.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

Well, I'll certainly (and as usual) sleep much better tonight knowing that Flint is here, once again telling me what I SHOULD be asking and what I SHOULD be thinking.

How I ever got along without you in my cyber-life to guide me in the RIGHT direction is beyond my scope.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

Patricia:

Yeah, it's a tough job, but someone ought to go around cleaning up after you. Be thankful I don't charge a fee -- education is not often free.

And be aware that if you were a typical mindless bozo, I wouldn't bother. When a smart person embarrasses herself, it's painful to see. Now next time, be more careful, think first, use head instead of rectum, etc. I know you can do it.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

Patricia,

The only thing I'll say is that my positions have apparently been misunderstood here (and elsewhere, for months now), no matter how carefully I state them.

On abortion, for example, I thought I stated as clearly as possible that (A) I am personally opposed to it and will usually try to talk a woman out of having one, but (B), I do *NOT* believe that it should be outlawed. And yet, I got lumped with the anti-abortionists in general, even though my position (I should hope, at least) is based on a good bit of thought.

(Of course, my thoughts usually consist of a few good bits here and there, but that's as may be.[g])

In this case, I was opposed to the witch hunts against the Clinton Administration. Now, if solid evidence of wrongdoing can be found, that's a matter of law; that's different. But in general, I opposed the witch hunts against Clinton, against Bush Sr, against Reagan, Carter, and Ford, and Nixon, and on back as far as you care to go.

I take no pleasure in the current demolition of John Ashcroft and I took no pleasure in the demolition of previous administrations (or their appointees -- Zoe Baird comes to mind).

At some point, the Hatfields and McKoys have got to realize that if you shoot Junior because he shot Tom because he shot Dick because he shot Harry because he shot Old Man Hatfield because he shot Old Man McKoy, it's never gonna end.

But someone's got to take the first step.

I keep waiting for one side in this mess -- Democrat OR Republican -- to finally say, "enough, we're gonna take the high ground from now on." I'm not holding my breath, of course, but I guess I'll keep waiting a bit longer. :)

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

See, Flint? I TOLD you to use humor more often. (BTW, reading what you've written over the past two months, well, um, er, *I'm* not the one embarrassing myself here. There were a couple of weeks there you couldn't even get the number of vote-counts correct. Hell, you even said six at one point. But I digress.....)

Stephen, did you miss the part where I wrote "...to a large extent I wholeheartedly agree"?

Then I added "BUT..... You simply cannot expect anyone who's had to listen to all the nonsense for the past eight years to suddenly roll over and play nice. (Not to mention those who've had it directed at them; e.g., any Dem/Lib who happens to post here or at Unk's.) The real world just doesn't work that way.

Besides, it's not like anyone in a position to make a difference (e.g., a Senator, a Congressperson - aside from the Black Caucus) has taken this attitude; which is preceisely why I mentioned the "cojones".

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

Trish,

No, I caught that. :)

Hey, turnabout is fair play, too. When the Republicans gained power in 1994, there was a lot of mumbling amongst them about "getting even" for Watergate, Iran-Contra, etc., etc. They proceeded to hound Clinton for 8 years, there's no denying that.

I said at the time that it was a mistake. They never listen to me, though. :)

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

They hounded Clinton for eight years because he was a Democrat and they hated losing the White House after all that time. I just went through my old copies of Reason and National Review and the rhetoric from the 1992 and '96 campaign was appalingly bitter and condescending, not towards Clinton but towards the American public. We were stupid for voting for him, we'd been fooled, we voted with our hearts, we had pretty much lost our minds, we voted for style over substance. With such a low opinion of the American rhetoric, is it any wonder that the Republican revolution ran out of steam? Is it any wonder that the GOP put up such a lackluster candidate as GW Bush, who was so uninspiring that he lost the popular vote by 1/2 a million to the human redwood?

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

Patricia:

I knew there were people (like yourself) who would claim we hadn't counted votes enough yet, no matter how many counts there might be. So when I listed all the counts, I explained what each one represented, and gave the *published* margin of victory with each one. I realized that any description of reality would require detailed documentation.

And sure enough, here you are omitting ALL the documentation and claiming reality never happened. Clearly, once you are determined to believe something, your mind acts to protect that belief whatever it takes. Now, I suggest you go back, look at the documenation I provided, and at least *try* to think about it. I know you can do it.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001

Uh Tarzan, about GW and that redwood....whos your president? Duh! lol...

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001

David-

My comment wasn't about who the president is, but about who actually won the election.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2001