The conservative thought police

November 1, 2006 in Bush administration, Culture, Media, Republicans

Grr. The bitter infighting all around the country in the days leading up to the election is quite irritating, isn’t it? But let’s be honest with one another, shall we? In general, the Republican Party has embarrassed itself and the nation with its overwhelmingly negative slate of campaign strategies.

Take, for example, this Washington Post story: “The Year of Playing Dirtier”:

The result has been a carnival of ugly, especially on the GOP side, where operatives are trying to counter what polls show is a hostile political environment by casting opponents as fatally flawed characters. The National Republican Campaign Committee is spending more than 90 percent of its advertising budget on negative ads, according to GOP operatives, and the rest of the party seems to be following suit.

There are some doozies listed here, an accusation that a Democratic candidate used government phone to call a sex line (a misdial that cost $1.25), connecting a Wisconsin Democrat to a serial killer and rapist (the killer’s attorney also once did work for the candiate), the infamous race-baiting ad insinuating that African-American Democratic candidate Harold Ford has a thing for white women (that’s none of your d*mn business, actually, don’t you think?).

Remember, this report is coming from a traditional media source, which, given its mission to provide “balance” and “objectivity,” worked d*mn hard to come up with some comparable negative campaigning by Democratic candidates. And didn’t come up with much.

One of the more recent attempts was an attempt to smear Virginia Senatorial Democrat Jim Webb by sending salacious excerpts from his novels to GOP lapdog and errand boy, Matt Drudge. Untangling an author from his work is tricky business and reminds me of an old adage circling the writing world (mangled in paraphrase): “Readers think everything is a lie in a book of nonfiction; and in fiction, that everything is true.” Bottom line: the events depicted happened only in the imagination of Jim Webb.

That’s actually an important distinction, because George Allen’s team is trying to “balance” or counter all the bad press that their own candidate has encountered. Judging by the glee that those passages were met with by conservatives, they think they succeeded. Me:

What’s most odd in my opinion about this scandal is that Republicans and their supporters view the passages from Webb’s novel to balance out actual racist misconduct from Senator Allen or actual sexual misconduct from Representative Mark Foley, as if thought should be subject to the same rules, laws, and propriety as action.

Here are some of the allegations against George Allen: He spit on his ex-wife. He threw his brother through a sliding-glass door and dragged his sister up the stairs by her hair. He used a racial epithet against a Webb staffer. He used the word “nigger” frequently in college. He stuffed a severed deer’s head into the mailbox of an African-American family. His campaign staff assaulted a blogger.

You see what I mean? The accusations – some or many perhaps untrue – are all about things Allen actually did. The accusations against Webb are for what he thought — and taken out of context from the setting of novel. (Should George Lucas be held accountable for imaging a dark helmeted intergalactic killer who could strangle people with his mind? Should JRR Tolkien be outcast for conjuring up the eye Mordor?)

It’s funny how much play conservatives get out of the terms “thought police” or “PC,” when it’s more often they who attack unfettered imagination. It’s not just with Jim Webb, it’s in the movement to censor or ban books, film, television, art, even certain political discussion. Basically anything that challenges the conservative ideology.

And you see it in what Dave Neiwert calls “eliminationist rhetoric,” the right-based movement to eliminate all traces of left-leaning activity, presence, or thought from society through shame, legislation, even violence.

But see what happens? If you’re a conservative and you disagree or get disillusioned, you get thrown under the bus and subjected to the same vitriol you helped dish out.

No wonder Montanans are considering Jon Tester for Senator. Many reasonable people think Iraq was a mistake, or has been bungled beyond repair. Many of those people have consistently voted the Republican ticket. And what does the President and his Burnsian lapdog say about these people? They’re traitors.

Here’s a novelty: vote based on the candidates’ actions, not on their rhetoric. I dare you.

–Posted by touchstone