You can’t fight these people by being calm and nice. You have to let people know that they’re vile, hateful scumbags with no sense of standards or simple human decency. You have to stand up to them and (rhetorically speaking) punch the sick SOBs right in the nose. Otherwise, they will walk all over you for the rest of your life.
I want to back up just a tad, because we are treading upon ground that I have been wandering over for a bit in my head. Specifically, it relates to the issue of differences between our contemporary liberals and our contemporary conservatives. Liberals are, I do believe, uncomfortable with the entire issue of power. We like to discuss power as something diffuse, coming from "the people", as if by magic. We are uncomfortable with ambition, with drive - the idea that there are those who actively pursue positions of power is unsettling. I think that part of the left's discomfort with the Clinton's has been the naked ambition of both of them. There was always a glint in Bill Clinton's eye during the 1992 campaign; he practically sweated a desire to occupy the White House. His wife is being attacked now for being "shrill", which is really a kind of code-word for being a woman who is too ambitious.
In this post at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall writes, in re the fundamental differences in style between the Obama and Clinton campaigns:
Obama isn't so much running for the nomination in the sense of reaching out and taking it. He's trying to show us how marvelous he is (and this isn't snark, he's really pretty marvelous) so that Democratic voters will recognize it and give him the nomination.
But that's not how it works in this country. I don't know if it really works otherwise anywhere else. But you have to really want it, come out and say it, take it. I thought about qualities that describe what is at issue. 'Toughness' seems to bound up in meta-national security mumbojumbo. 'Ruthlessness' sounds too, well, ruthless. You have to want it enough that you reach out and take it. Which isn't always pretty and admirable. But that's what it takes.
I think that is why, in the end, despite my preference for Dodd or Edwards, or perhaps Dennis Kucinich, I believe that Hillary will win. Not only is she disciplined, professional, and bright, but she is ruthless. She will do what it takes to win.
And that makes liberals uncomfortable.
Which brings us back to our current contretemps. The right-wing has displayed not just a lack of moral sense and proportion, but the kind of ruthless pursuit of an agenda one usually only sees in totalitarian regimes. Joe Gandleman at The Moderate Voice writes (h/t C&L):
Those who support Bush and the group of win-one-for-our-team might perhaps focus their efforts countering arguments such as this. Then you’d have an actual back-and-forth debate over issues and come up with policy (which might be different from the existing bill).
But no, it’s easier to go after a 12 year-old. After all, these days, anyone who is in the way of an agenda has to be discredited so that no one listens to them anymore.
Yet, once upon a time, American society would pull out all stops not to go after a kid. The bar has been lowered yet again.
Liberals may be uncomfortable with ruthless displays of ambition. We may have been caught unawares by the depths to which some sectors of our society might sink (I think that is why this entire episode is such a big deal; this is the kind of thing no one could really expect to happen due to its outrageousness). Of course, this is also why the left is often playing defense/catch-up with the right. We refuse to get down in the muck. Like Obama, we want to persuade with our ideas rather than show people how much we desire power. Like Ezra Klein, we would rather debate issues than gleefully wallow in the attention we are receiving for going after a family with six children, one of whom is severely disabled.
When the attack does come, we continue to be reasonable - we try pointing out the facts (the family's income, the price they paid for the house, the scholarships for the kids' private schools, etc) as if those attacking the Frosts were at all interested in facts. Indeed, by doing such as this, we fall in to the trap of treating the attack as something it is not - a legitimate part of our public discourse, rather than the rantings of fringe whackos. Instead of pointing out factual errors ("See, here's where you're wrong; if you knew this you might not have attacked a family of eight who make less that $50,000 a year. Right? Right?") we should be . . .
Calling them batshit crazy. Insane. Not allowing them to make a single point. Not granting one ounce of legitimacy to anything they say. This issue is not what the Frosts make or don't make; the issue isn't what the cost of the private school for their kids might or might not be. The issue is very simple, really (I'll highlight it here):
You don't attack a child, or the child's family, in public. Ever. For any reason. By doing so, you have demonstrated that you have no place in our public discourse.
You don't just push back. You act ruthless. You silence them. Every time they try to get a word in edgewise, interrupt. Keep pushing them to answer uncomfortable questions. Don't grant them legitimacy by arguing their points. Keep them guessing. Call them liars. Call them fascists. Call them absolutely nuts. Keep at it, don't ever let up.
Until we on the left show the kind of courage and fortitude to do this, I think we deserve to be have more such incidents in our public sphere.
UPDATE: Over here at Ezra Klein's blog there is a good example of what I am talking about here. A commenter named "Jerri Jones" attempts to address the whole question of the Frosts and the SCHIP debate from the standpoint of something called "personal responsibility" (as if getting help when help is offered is not responsible). The liberal commenters attempt to address issues that "Jerri Jones" raises, instead of saying that the perspective being offered is illegitimate on its face, and the Frosts, and any responsibility they may or may not have exercised is not at issue. Instead, the post rambles on and on, granting legitimacy (for the most part) to a point of view that has none.
UPDATE: E J Dionne makes the same mistake so many others make by treating the attacks by the right-wingers as if they had any merit, or were related in any manner, fashion, or form, to questions of fact or context. They are not, which is why a reasonable voice like Dionne's is as ineffective as the best-intentioned fact-checking by the left.
