Exhuming McCarthy
By Henry Farrell releases the final tally. The literally McCarthyite tactic of equating disagreement with Republican foreign policy with treason is alive and well among prominent conservative commentators.
Relatedly, some members of the new blog collective Donklephant were apparently upset when Roy expressed some skepticism about the blog’s “centrist” orientation. Recently, Justin Gardner expressed surprise that Glenn Reynolds would be described as a “conservative” blogger. I noted that Tailgunner Glenn had called Ward Churchill “the face of the left” and claimed that “many Democrats are rooting for the other side.” Gardner’s response was that while the first claim was a little strong Churchill had “traction” on the left, and that the second claim he agreed with. It is a strange “centrism” indeed that can hold that a majority of the American left are traitors. Perhaps we need a new entry in the wingnut debating dictionary for “RogerSimonCentrism: Being a hyper-partisan Republican hack who once participated in a civil rights march.”
…in comments in that thread, Dave reminds us of how Reynolds manages to turn the few issues on which he ostensibly agrees with Democrats into attacks on…the Democrats. There was his attempt to claim that Kerry and Bush had the same position on gay rights although they disagree about every major federal issue, and then there’s his attempt to blame Democrats for the Bush administration’s torture policies, better known as The Day the Logic Died.