An act of political intimidation — from the left
There’s an effort to brand conservatives, Republicans and tea partiers as culpable for the stupid death threats that a handful of idiots are making to some members of Congress. That effort has the same intent as the death threats: intimidation.
It should go without saying that death threats are unacceptable in this situation, just as they were when George Bush was president. But if it needs to be said, well, I just said it.
It is, however, also a calculated act of intimidation to smear an entire political movement as a bunch of dangerous lunatics on the basis of a handful of actions. I do not recall the same people who are now so worried about anti-ObamaCare threats also wringing their hands about the entire political left’s culpability when, for instance, some idiot shot up a Bush-Cheney re-election headquarters in Knoxville or ransacked one in Orlando, or attacked a GOP office in Raleigh, or vandalized Bush supporters’ homes in Madison, Wis. (H/t Instapundit)
In fact, click through the link to the Knoxville story, and you get a good idea of the Democratic notion of who’s to blame when the left attacks:
Knox County Democratic chairman Jim Gray called the attack “despicable.”
“I can’t imagine what kind of thinking inspired it or maybe what amount of alcohol,” Gray said. “My second thought is, maybe it was just someone who got tired of their darn Kerry signs being stolen.” (emphasis added)
You see? When the left attacks, it’s because some guy just got a little drunk — or, even more despicably, to use Jim Gray’s word, it’s because, well, Mom! The Republicans started it by stealing my John Kerry sign!
Today, however, these threats are described as the responsibility of all Americans who spoke out against ObamaCare. And why is that?
Well, given the constant effort to brand the right as racists, fascists, and now terrorists — oh, wait, I forgot; we were already branded as terrorists by this administration — one gets the impression that it’s a concerted effort to discredit the left’s opponents and intimidate Americans from outwardly supporting the tea parties and Republicans.
Sound conspiratorial? Any more conspiratorial than the notion that the millions of tea partiers in America are motivated chiefly by racism, rather than the president’s policies?
There are a few hotheads out there who need to cool down and remember that there are still democratic avenues for opposing ObamaCare (as an overwhelming majority of Americans — including two-thirds of independents — tell pollsters they want Republicans to do). There are even more talking heads who need to stop fanning the flames by casting the blame more widely than it belongs.
***
UPDATE: Anatomy of a racial smear
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132 comments Add your comment
#1 Foxy Lady
March 25th, 2010
2:15 pm
The tea parties can call me what they want, they can pull their guns out and shoot at me, and they can try to blow me up. The tea parties and their good buddies, the militia-types, all have a lot of practice at intimidating and shoot’n no matter how much Kyle wants to deny it. All the evidence is there.
I just have one thing left to say to ‘em. And that is:
SUCK IT, LOSERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
About Sonny Perdue’s health-care lawsuit | Kyle Wingfield
March 25th, 2010
2:21 pm
[...] keep talking about the intimidation post below. But for those who have had their say on that, here’s something I’ve been [...]
Willie
March 25th, 2010
2:22 pm
retiredds
March 25th, 2010
2:06 pm
You thinking is of course correct. However, in my lifetime and my experience, I have never seen a liberal succumb to my values and beliefs. I must succumb to theirs to continue the debate in a rational civil manner. I like Kyle and respect him very much, but I will not give a micrometer. I will maintain my values and beliefs forever. If a shouting match is therefore the result–sobeit.
Kyle Wingfield
March 25th, 2010
2:29 pm
For everyone who thinks this is a one-way street: http://bit.ly/bBLNOk
Now I’ll wait for someone to explain that Rush, et al. also stoke the flames on the left…
CJ
March 25th, 2010
2:42 pm
Unrelenting violent imagery and violent metaphors are coming from just one of the two political parties. To deny the connections between the rhetoric of GOP members and their media enablers and and recent death threats is to be deliberately obtuse.
Algonquin J. Calhoun
March 25th, 2010
2:45 pm
The Republinazi Party and the Tea-baggers are nothing more than Taliban for Christ. As for racism, when they called John Lewis the ‘N’ word and spat upon him as he walked through the halls of congress, any deniability disappeared. The Republican leadership has aligned itself with the devil and now it’s time to give up what little soul they had left. As for your contemptible assertion that the Democrats are somehow to blame I find it as ridiculous as any victim being blamed for the criminality they’ve been subjected to. Sarah, queen of the Tundra, has the names of Democrats who supported health-care reform in the cross-hairs of a sniper’s scope on her web site. Anorexic Coulter says she regrets McVeigh didn’t make it to the New York Times Building. Those people aren’t Democrats. They are heroes(zeroes) of your party!
#1 Foxy Lady
March 25th, 2010
2:50 pm
For everyone who thinks this is a one-way street: http://bit.ly/bBLNOk
Maybe these two people can join the left’s tea party… if there was one!
Keep spinning Kyle. The attempts make your argument that much weaker.
Willie
March 25th, 2010
3:02 pm
CJ:
Nicely written! If your point is taken as fact, the difference of the two political parties in this event reflects the will of most of the people and not just the party. One may become more resolved when constitutional liberties are stolen due to ill gotten means such as bribery and behind closed door deals. Not only the loss of freedom has to be confronted but a disguised agenda that will usurp a way of life that is not readily or easily abandoned. Converatives must continue their path however the liberals label it. I will stand with them.
Willie
March 25th, 2010
3:04 pm
Algonquin J. Calhoun
March 25th, 2010
2:45 pm
That is alleged and can not be proven. sorry!
hatin' on the stupid
March 25th, 2010
3:06 pm
“For everyone who thinks this is a one-way street:”
End of story, eh, Kyle. To think that Republicans don’t own this ugly period in our history is laughable.
hatin' on the stupid
March 25th, 2010
3:13 pm
“One may become more resolved when constitutional liberties are stolen due to ill gotten means such as bribery and behind closed door deals.”
My God, grow up and quit whining at democracy at work. You should have been concerned with your way of life when Bush and Cheny flaunted laws, domestic and international. Illegal wiretapping? Can you imaging the furor had this originated with the Obama administration? Back then “might meant right”. Now a democratically elected president and congress pass a totally legitimate law and they’re equated with terrorists, Nazis, and whatever other derogatory comments Fox can come up with.
Willie
March 25th, 2010
3:15 pm
hatin’ on the stupid
March 25th, 2010
3:13 pm
The difference is a war for the security of the people and the other is for the control of the people. As said on Fox,”You are a koolade drinker!”.
hatin' on the stupid
March 25th, 2010
3:18 pm
Yeah, that’s what we say about you Fox watchers, too, Willie.
hatin' on the stupid
March 25th, 2010
3:21 pm
“The difference is a war for the security of the people and the other is for the control of the people.”
To say that the push for HCR is about control is exhibit #1 that you have indeed been hosed by Bortz’s “Golden nectar of Truth”.
TGT
March 25th, 2010
3:30 pm
Don’t forget the Bush assassination film, Black Panther intimidation at the polls, and:
Al Gore: “He betrayed this country! He played on our fears! He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure pre-ordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place!”
Harry Reid: “I think this guy (Bush) is a loser.” and “President Bush is a liar…”
Cindy Sheehan: “George Bush is responsible for killing tens of thousands of innocent people.”
Nancy Pelosi: “Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he’s not a leader,”
Ramsey Clark: “George W. Bush and his principal officials are the greatest threat to world peace, to human rights,”
Jesse Jackson: “We will take to the streets right now. We will delegitimize Bush, discredit him, do whatever it takes, but never accept him.”
etc. etc. etc.
Kyle Wingfield
March 25th, 2010
4:11 pm
Not Bush-related, TGT, but you (and I) left out: “Punch back twice as hard.”
Newt's Butt Cutt
March 25th, 2010
4:21 pm
What a stupid, stupid column. Yet another far right wingnik blaming Democrats for violence and verbal abuse encouraged by conservatives. Have you ever watched Glen Beck program? He’s stopped JUST short of encouraging armed resistance against the government. The GOP is self-destructing from within just like the Democratic party did in 1968 because of their own lunatic fringe. But the difference is that the GOP/conservative lunatic fringe are not a bunch of college students; they are largely men and women in their 40’s and 50’s who should know better. And GOP House members are setting a fine example. Continued outbursts on the house floor by Republicans. Encouragement by GOP House members of disruptions in the gallery. A bunch of spoiled children. You, your party and your movement need to grow up, Sir.
Marcos
March 25th, 2010
5:08 pm
People like Rep. Peter King of Iowa, the RNC and others ARE responsible. Do not be so naive Kyle. You know exactly how this works. You conservatives stoked these fires of hatred and now you own them. Grow a pair and take ownership.
CJ
March 25th, 2010
5:18 pm
The Eric Cantor nonsense turns out to be exactly that. Cantor said, “Just recently I have been directly threatened. A bullet was shot through the window of my campaign office in Richmond this week.”
Here’s the statement from the Richmond Police:
We report. You decide.
Kyle Wingfield
March 25th, 2010
5:43 pm
Whoa: Andrew Breitbart of BigGovernment.com offers a $10,000 reward “to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at [Rep. John Lewis] not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once. Surely one of those two cameras wielded by members of his entourage will prove his point.
“And surely if those cameras did not capture such abhorrence, then someone from the mainstream media — those who printed and broadcast his assertions without any reasonable questioning or investigation — must themselves surely have it on camera. Of course we already know they don’t. If they did, you’d have seen it by now.
“THOUSANDS OF TIMES.”
http://bit.ly/axlfPa
Kyle Wingfield
March 25th, 2010
5:49 pm
PSA: I’m going to be away for most of the next few days, and all comments will have to go through moderation during that time. I’ll check the queue as often as possible. Thanks for your understanding.
CJ
March 25th, 2010
5:59 pm
“Andrew Breitbart of BigGovernment.com offers a $10,000 reward “to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at [Rep. John Lewis] not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once. Surely one of those two cameras wielded by members of his entourage will prove his point.”
Kyle’s repeated implications that John Lewis is either a liar or an idiot does more harm than good for his cause.
Even if his lame implications were true, his spin would have require that we forget about all the protest signs threatening violence, written and recorded death threats, broken windows, cut gas lines, and the rest. I, for one, haven’t forgotten.
Daved
March 25th, 2010
7:22 pm
“Do you really expect people to calm down when conservatives condemn these actions, if the left is simultaneously smearing all of its opponents? Don’t you see that these smears are escalating things, not de-escalating them?”
It seems to me that you miss the point. Having read Newt Gingrich’s tepid condemnation of the right wing wing-nuts today, coupled with his apologia for their anger which, unsaid, “justifiably” led to their threats, Republican leaders, at least Gingrich, do have culpability. Whip up the masses, when the whipping works, condemn them. I don’t blame all Republicans or Democrats for what the fringes do. I do blame the leadership of both parties for the serial partisan attacks that lead to the fringe idiocy.
StJ
March 25th, 2010
7:35 pm
Rep. Dingell (D), March 22, 2010:
“The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”
So-called “health care reform” is and always has been about controlling the people, as I have stated from the beginning. (Why else would you need to kill a forest just to print the thing?) Validated by a Democrat – straight from the donkey’s mouth, so to speak.
And we wonder why these things take place…Next thing you know, there will be the American(?) version of the Reichstag fire.
Atlantan
March 25th, 2010
11:14 pm
What about the African-American man that was beaten by the SEIU and democratic supporter goons last August in St. Louis. I heard no condemnation from the left on this.
Recall the political cartoonist who equated Condi Rice to Mammy – from the left crickets.
This is a calculated strategy by the left to change the subject. When you can’t defend your position you immediately cry racism, sexism, etc.
The truth always wins in the end and the Obamacare will be a financial disaster on our great country. Did you see the announcements from Caterpillar, Verizon and Medtronix today in the WSJ – this is only week one after Obamacare.
irishmafia
March 26th, 2010
12:17 am
Wouldn’t be he least bit surprised if all this supposed “violence” if real was staged by liberal to try to justify their position. Chicago politics at it’s finest
irishmafia
March 26th, 2010
12:23 am
Brings to mind supposedly Lewis et al were spat upon and called words they didn’t like. Funny with all the hundreds of cameras reporters cell phone cameras etc no one caught any of it on tape. Fact is I don’t recall anyone arrested even though he as surrounded by police. If they were MSM would have been all over the identification of the suspect. Again STAGED ? Could have seen this coming before the vote from a mile away.
irishmafia
March 26th, 2010
12:27 am
Liberals take note
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)
No More Progressives!
March 26th, 2010
6:31 am
chris barry
March 25th, 2010
10:54 am
When’s the last time anyone on the left blew up a federal building, pal? Or shot up an abortion clinic?
Exactly. Damn, what passes for political discourse in the United States is ridiculous sometimes. It’s genuinely embarrassing. No wonder the rest of the world sees us as buffoons.
Bill Ayers, Little Barry Soetoro’s neighborhood friend, on 5/19/1972. ELF (too many to mention) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Liberation_Front
Robert Littel
March 26th, 2010
12:21 pm
3.I find it most interesting that the apologists for the criminal operation that was the Bush regime (from the moment they stole The White House),find that the mild response of the opposition (Democrats)to an illegal war (Iraq), the transfer of vast wealth to the top (legalized theft of the Bush tax cuts), the despoiling of the economy to benefit the greed of the banking system (through rapine deregulation), all done in the name of a bumbling, inarticulate puppet of corporate interests, can be used to defend themselves from the hatred and threats, threat of armed retaliation and even of violent revolution, being whipped up by them, against a man whose only goal is to use the power of the government to help ease the pain and suffering of our country’s people, as in “WE THE PEOPLE”.
Joel Edge
March 27th, 2010
6:40 am
Thanks, Kyle. Andrew Breitbart has offered 10,000 dollars for proof that tea parties uttered the n word. Haven’t heard of any takers yet. I think we’ve enough examples of how far the dems will go to push their socialist agenda. Branding your opponents as racist and violent will only go so far. pretty soon you’ll have to call everybody racist. The only cure will come in November.
LibraryJim
March 29th, 2010
9:30 am
Has anyone actually seen/heard the video/audio of the racists slurs reportedly hurled at Pelosi & co. on the day of the vote? I haven’t yet.
It’s like the report of someone shouting “kill him” in reference to Obama at a McCain rally, which later turned out to be in the imagination of the reporter. There are more reports then actual incidents. If the incidents happened, then they should be condemned by both sides (and the Republicans were quick to come out in condemnation of threats this past week).
But I’m sure the left would not let a few facts interfere with their rant.