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Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Now Karl Rove Is Panicking

Why is Karl Rove in a frenzy? Is it the Delay indictment? No, he's hoping for at least one more. The first one won't stand and the second one seems dubious. Is it Cindy Sheehan? No, Karl Rove probably has a little shrine in his bedroom to her and ANSWER.

It's Richard Cohen. No one knows how this happened, but suddenly the man shape-shifted into a liberal form and demanded that the Democrats start acting liberal again:
Because I came of age in the McCarthy era, I have always thought of the Democratic Party as more protective of free speech and unpopular thought than the Republican Party. The GOP was the party of Joe McCarthy, William Jenner and other witch-hunters. Now, though, it is the Democrats who use the pieties of race, ethnicity and gender to stifle debate and smother thought, pretty much what anti-intellectual intellectuals did to Larry Summers, the president of Harvard University, when he had the effrontery to ask some unorthodox questions about gender and mathematical aptitude. He was quickly instructed on how to think.

...These spitball press releases, these demeaning zingers, only tend to highlight the GOP argument that the Democrats are out of ideas. If so, I have one to offer them: Think
Oh. My. Lord. Is this the second coming of liberals in the Democratic party? If so, Karl Rove better be shaking in his boots.

I can't believe that someone writing for the Washington Post actually noticed the discrepancy between defending Ward Churchill's right to say whatever he wanted and demanding that Larry Summers be fired. I can't believe that Cohen had the guts and integrity to defend Bennett and observe that the Democratic leadership owed Bennett an apology:
Prominent Democrats -- Harry Reid in the Senate, John Conyers and Rahm Emanuel in the House and, of course, Pelosi -- jumped all over him. Conyers wanted Bennett suspended from his radio show. Emanuel said Bennett's comments "reflect a spirit of hate and division." Pelosi said Bennett was out of the mainstream, and Reid simply asked for an apology.

Actually, it is Reid and the others who should apologize to Bennett. They were condemning and attempting to silence a public intellectual for a reference to a theory.
I'm awed and charmed. Finally, a liberal who actually believes in free speech again.


Comments:
Cohen's column took a lot of guts. The good news, is that he isn't alone.
http://mistersnitch.blogspot.com/2005/09/intolerance-in-name-of-freedom.html
 
Good news.

Better news would be that the people that should be listening, actually are.
 
At some point, Democrats will stop desperately snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and at least sit down and think it over.
 
The Bennett remark was stupid and if a public figure can't figure out a better analogy he deserves what he gets. I cannot imagine anyone actually saying something like that; it smacks of eugenics, racism, and eliteist blather. Bennett is a pretentious blow hard who has finally experienced blow back.
 
Pedro - Right. We need a real debate instead of this "Cheney is an old meanie" stuff. It sure is nice to see a liberal argument coming from a liberal again.

You can't have a real debate in a university. Larry Summers tried it, and look what happened to him. Leftist, violent rants are applauded, but you can't have an actual debate.

We're like a society in an intellectual corset.

Howard - I don't know much about Bennett, except that he gambles. As for the argument, he was retailing someone else's.

People don't like the words he used, but as far as I'm concerned he's the only one who's being honest. Forget that "village for the children" stuff, now it's "whack the poor, we can't afford 'em."
 
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