Hating the Enemy - No, The Other Enemy! Y'know - Us.

The other day I saw something disturbing on Hannity and colmes.

No, it wasn't the usual thing - y'know like Hannity speaking. It was a statement made from a relatively unexpected source, Kelsey Grammer. The star of the Memorial Weekend Blockbuster X-men - in the midst of making his second (or maybe third) announcement that he intends to someday, eventually, join the ranks of Ah-nald in the upwardly mobile profession of politics - made a plea for moderation claiming "We have more that unites us, than divides us" and then he followed that up with the statement I found so astonishing.

GRAMMER: You guys make a living being divided. You have to be. That's part of your shtick. But I think there's more that unites us than divides us. Now I think it's a terrible mistake for members of the Democratic Party, not all of them certainly, to make a major plank of their platform to be just hating the Republicans.

Pardon my straight-forward common English but what tha holy flying fuck is he talking about?
It may be a fair argument to say that Democrats haven't yet articulated a coordinated strategy (Yes, they do have one), he wasn't seriously blaming the coarsening of public discourse on Democrats is he?

Yep, I think he was.

Let's do a quick review (thanks to Media Matters) of some of the things that Republicans, including Hannity, regularly say about Democrats and Liberals.

• Sean Hannity suggested that the DNC may have been behind the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos, asking: "Was that a DNC plot too?" (The Sean Hannity Show, 9/10/04)
  
  
• Laura Ingraham stated that Democratic Sens. John Kerry (MA), Joseph R. Biden Jr. (DE), and Barbara Boxer (CA) are "on the side of" North Korea leader Kim Jong Il because they were opposed to John R. Bolton's nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. (Hannity & Colmes, 4/11/05).
  
  
• Ann Coulter on Bill Clinton, "he was a very good rapist" and "molested the help" and on Al Gore, "Before we knew he was clinically insane" - "He seemed kinda gay".
  
  
• Bill O'Reilly says he doesn't do "personal attacks", except of course for when he does.
  

On The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly has referred to media writer and Fox News Watch panelist Neal Gabler as a "rabid dog" and said of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, "How nuts is this guy?" O'Reilly also said guest Christopher Murray "sounds like a fascist" for saying that that public institutions should not display religious symbols and called former Public Broadcasting System host Bill Moyers a "totalitarian." Students at the University of Connecticut who heckled right-wing pundit Ann Coulter during her campus appearance there earned the title of "far-left Nazis" from O'Reilly. He's also called John Kerry a "sissy", and claimed that Bill Clinton would be welcomed as president by Osama bin Laden.


• Jonah Goldberg has distorted comments by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), called syndicated columnist Helen Thomas a "thespian carbuncle of bile," and accused former President Jimmy Carter of engaging in a "mildly ghoulish exploitation of Coretta Scott King's funeral."
  
  
• Then of course there's Michelle Malkin whose has claimed that "the vast majority of Hispanic politicians" believe that "the American Southwest belongs to Mexico;" has referred to certain Californian politicians as "Latino supremacists;" and characterized recent immigration protests as "militant racism" marked by "virulent anti-American hatred."

The claim the "Liberals are filled with Hate" really shouldn't be all that surprising. (Yeah, I was obviously sheltered until Kelsey woke me up) As noted by Malkin the right-wing and Republican party have made a regular accusation that "Liberals and Democrats Hate America", "Hate George Bush", "Hate Christianity" and "Hate the Military".

It's not just these pundits who makes these claims.

• Townhall: Liberals Hate Fellow Americans more than Islamicists
  
  
• David Horowitz: In 200 years of this nation’s political history, there has never been a hate campaign as massive, as nasty, and as personally vicious as the one directed against President George Bush.
  
  
• Nathan Tabor : Liberals hate Freedom, Not War
  
  
• Joe Klein : "Well [Democrats] won't [regain control of Congress] if their message is that they hate America -- which is what has been the message of the liberal wing of the party for the past twenty years."

This repeated refrain is far from an accident. It's part of a concerted campaign to generally castigate anyone non-Conservative and non-Republican. The plan is to claim that everything they say, regardless of how well reasoned or logical it may be, is ultimately caused by some deep-seated feeling of irrational hate, and you deconstruct the counter argument without ever having to engage it.

It also goes a long way to continually re-enforce the "Victim Ideology". If you listen to them, Republicans and Conservatives are constantly under attack, they've had to repel a War On Christmas, and even a War on Easter. This besides the fact that Conservatives control two branches of the Government outright (Legislative, Executive) have a strong foothold in the third (Judicial) as well as a massive presense in the Fourth Estate of Media. Still they claim they are constantly under siege, by the rabid hordes of Liberalism?

To quote Harvard Law Profressor Lawrence Tribe : Poppycock!

No, Republicans are not under attack. Nor are they "Under Siege". But the constant bleating keeps them in a constantly crouched defensive position - ready to desperately counter-attack any encroachment on thier "territory". The constant cries of Liberals On the Rampage are an easy way to justify the use of any and all means (necessary or not) to fight back. Republicans are the heroes of their own self-written story.

Let me tell you something about Liberals. Something that even they sometimes forget. Something I've come to realize since fully rejoining their ranks over the last two years.

Liberals don't hate Republicans. They don't hate George Bush. They don't hate America. They don't hate our Military.

But they do have hate in their hearts.

They hate what Republicans and George Bush have DONE TO America and our Military over the last five years.

They hate that Republicans, who love to hide behind the flag and any military uniform they can find - will throw our veterans under the bus at the drop of a hat, by cutting their benefits - at a time of war, when they kinda need those health benefits.

In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap — and getting cheaper by the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately.

For example, the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are wasteful and unnecessary — including a modest proposal to double the $6,000 gratuity paid to families of troops who die on active duty. This comes at a time when Americans continue to die in Iraq at a rate of about one a day.

Similarly, the administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones.

They hate that when we do have the occasion when our troops make a mistake -- or even commit a crime -- their idea of "support" is to come up with phony excuses for that crime rather than insist that those guilty be held accountable, including responsible parties in the chain of command.

They hate that Republicans have misread the Bible so grossly (Genesis: Just how long is a "Day" when God hadn't yet even "created" the Earth yet?) that they continue to insist that non-science such as so-called "Intelligent Design" be taught in science class instead of where it belongs - in comparative theology.

They hate that Republicans claim to care about "all life", except for the lives of pregnant women and innocent Iraqi civilians caught in the cross-fire of War.

They hate that Republicans would rather women die of cancer than have sex.

They hate that a President who claims to be "a uniter, not a divider," has divided the country in a manner unequalled since the Civil War.

They hate "Hillbilly Armor".

They hate that the current administration has fostered an environment of cronyism that leads to the inept failing their way upward (Brownie?), and favored contractors raking in the spoils from the Iraq conflict while our sons and daughters in uniform pay for it in blood, and their sons and daughters will eventually pay for it in treasure.

They hate what the Bush Administration let happen to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, even though they were warned.

They hate so-called "failures of imagination" whether they were prior to 9-11, prior to the invasion of Iraq or during the ongoing insurgency - especially when there were plenty of people "imagined' it all just perfectly.

They hate how Republicans have staged a mugging of our seniors through their Medicare Part-D debacle.

They hate how this Administration has decided to wipe their ass with the First (Prosecuting Journalists), Fourth (Warrantless Wire Taps, Data Mining, Physical Searches) , Fifth (Habeas Corpus) and Eighth (Torture) Amendments to the Constitution - and every indication seem to be they're gunning for the rest of them.

They hate how Republicans have made truth, facts and reality merely a matter of opinion.

Hating Republicans themselves, is (or certainly should be) an afterthought at best. IMO, they should be pitied for their compulsive/obsessive addiction to a failed ideology.

Vyan