Many conservatives see events like the tirade of Ted Kennedy over Samuel Alito's inevitable confirmation as a sign that the left is losing its collective mind, such as the literate and courageous Michelle Malkin. See ('KENNEDY UNHINGED: LIVEBLOGGING THE MELTDOWN'.)
Michael Novak writes in First Things that the seemingly unhinged attacks by the left on anything or anyone near the right are perhaps part of an intentional strategy. Says Novak,
"The Left is not engaged in an “argument,” it is engaged in a revolution in the name of all that is just and right and good. Therefore, it does not aim to out-argue its opponents, but to shame them, to drive them from the field in ignominy, to make them figures of ridicule, moral indignation, and revulsion."
I suppose it is true in most any debate, whether the debate is about politics, religion or even sports. Making the other guy look like and idiot or the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler allows one to avoid the need to make coherent arguments based on facts, logic and truth. No doubt folks on all sides of many arguments use the tactic to some degree.
But it seems the party of Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, Howard Dean, John Kerry and the like have sunk to new depths of slander in recent years. One wonders if Novak is right. That they have no intention of winning debates at this point, but do seek to intimidate, to make anyone who disagrees with them think twice about speaking up, to make any conservative judge cower at the thought of having to subject himself to confirmation hearings, to make any conservative politician fear making any poorly worded statement, fear that any youthful indiscretion will become fodder for a voracious press.
I don't have any desire to spend a lot of time here on politics, plenty of other bloggers out there can do that much better than I. But I do have to say, all the "Bush lied" about WMD rhetoric that the left has shamelessly and perpetually repeated is, to me, evidence exhibit 1. The same lines have been so often repeated, "Bush stole the election", "Bush blew up the World Trade Center", "Bush flooded New Orleans". All stuff so ridiculous anyone with a half-aware attention to common sense and a few basic facts should be able to see through it. Yet it goes on and on, and Kennedy's attempts to smear Alito are just the latest case in point.
Novak attributes this tactic of character assisination and intimidation to Lenin. The idea was that by ridiculing the opposition, they become in the eyes of the public people so bad, so reprehensible, no one would dare defend them even if the facts would. So this has been a tactic of the left for many decades (and a tactic unfortunately borrowed by Joe McCarthy.) It has been revived during the presidency of George W. Bush with a vengeance.
"But by turning back to their Old Left handbooks, the Democratic leadership has found the acids that destroy opposition. Even though the nation is in a deadly war, they constantly attack the credibility and truthfulness of the President, ridicule him, call him names, morally assassinate him. That acid seeps through society."
And sadly, it is an effective method. One seemingly countered by the Administration simply making a case for itself.
"As to building a better country, there is not much in this method to commend it. But for destroying the moral standing of the other side, it has had proven effect for many decades. It is not crazy for Democrats to conclude that, having lost so much, they have little more to lose."
On the last point, I disagree with Novak. There is much more to lose. In the case of the NSA program to eavesdrop on terrorists who may be phoning operatives in the United States, the left wants to make the Bush Administration look like some hyper-monstrous reincarnation of the Nazi SS or an insidious techno-fascist dictatorship from some bad sci-fi novel, just one step away from world conquest. In reality, they may be making it easier for folks who want to blow up civillians to do so. The left may just get us killed.
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