Prisoners of Their Own Rhetoric

I play the fiddle and regularly get together with other fiddlers. Last week we had just played a piece called "Liberty" and someone just had to add, "We don't see much of that under Bush."

Now why would he say that? I honestly cannot think of any liberties I have lost in the last five years. True, there are longer lines at the airport than there used to be and there are reports that it will take longer and cost more to get a driver's license. Both of these are prudent changes similar to the original metal detectors installed in airports after the first few skyjackings.

So we can write my friend off as having a knee-jerk reaction.

Then there is Harry Belafonte. He recently referred to President Bush as the world's greatest tyrant and terrorist. The terrorist part came from his belief that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were unjustified. I'm going to skip over that part to the part about being a tyrant.

tyrant n 1. an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution.

Some wiretaps do not make a tyrant. In order to qualify, Bush would have to suspend Congress and the Supreme Court. If Bush really was the world's biggest tyrant then Belafonte would be facing arrest and imprisonment, not speaking engagements at universities. If Bush was a tyrant, he would be acting more like Castro, who Belafonte admires.

Alright, let's dismiss Belafonte as a communist sympathizer.

Next up, a new mail campaign by the ACLU featuring the slogan, "I REFUSE to Surrender my Freedom!" complete with a sticker and pre-printed letters for our senators and representative. The things they are against:

• Renewal of the Patriot Act.
• The faith-based initiative (which gives money to charitable organizations to expand their charities)
• The federal ban on partial-birth abortions
• Any attempts to block gay marriage.
• "Court stripping" laws.

Note, the language they use is quite different from what I used. For example, they refer to the ban on partial-birth abortions as the "first-ever federal abortion ban". and they refer to religious groups eligible for faith-based charity funds as "religious institutions and religious extremists".

Combine the hysterical tone used by the ACLU with the quotes from Al Gore and Hillary Clinton I wrote about yesterday and you can see why my friend thinks ill of President Bush.

The problem is that the left is using this rhetoric to whip up their base and increase donations. This in turn obligates them to pick fights. When they inevitably lose, their base gets even more whipped up and demands more fights.

Look at the Alito hearings. Here is a judge who is very well qualified and appears to be fairly moderate but he will be replacing a swing vote and Roberts was given a pass so Democrats had to fight.

All of this is very destructive. Once you convince your followers that Bush is a tyrant who is endangering the Constitution there is no room for compromise.

For years we have been hearing about how polarized Washington has become. This is why. When the Democrats were in charge, the crazed theories about black helicopters taking over the US for the UN came from the Republican fringe. Now that the Democrats have been out of power for a while the crazies represent the Democrat mainstream.

The Democrats have a shot at the White House in 2008 but less of a shot at both the House and the Senate. Today's rhetoric may well come back to haunt a future Democrat president How on earth can a Democrat deal with a Republican Congress after this sort of attack?