Liberal Hate Speech

If we try real hard, maybe we’ll be able to detect a pattern developing here on how liberals elites are reacting to what they see as conservative Republican intransigence in the debt ceiling debate.

Let’s start with one of the elitist elites, Tom Friedman, star columnist at the New York Times, who compared the Tea Party to Middle East terrorists. “If sane Republicans do not stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst,” he wrote, “the Tea Party will take the G.O.P. on a suicide mission.”

Then there is fellow liberal elite journalist Peter Goodman who used to write about economics for the New York Times and is now business editor at the Huffington Post. He minced no words in a post (that was later toned down by higher-ups): “The same Republicans who have so eagerly prosecuted the war on terror, running up huge deficits in the process, are now behaving like the enemies on which they have squandered so much blood and treasure: They are acting like terrorists. Yes, terrorists.”

Or how about this guest column on Politico from William Yeomans, who teaches law at American University in Washington and used to work for Ted Kennedy:  “It has become commonplace to call the tea party faction in the House ‘hostage takers.’ But they have now become full-blown terrorists.”

Have you spotted the pattern yet, Einstein?

Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News was quite colorful on the syndicated TV talk show Inside Washington when she compared the Tea Party caucus in Congress to terrorists:  “I mean, they’ve strapped explosives to the Capitol and they think they are immune from it.”

But Steve Rattner, the former “car czar” in the Obama administration who now opines on MSNBC respectfully disagrees with Ms. Carlson.  The Tea Party caucus isn’t strapping explosives to the Capitol.  No, they’re strapping explosives to themselves.  Here’s what he said on Morning Joe: “I imagine these Tea Party guys are like strapped with dynamite, standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour and saying, ‘either you do it my way, or we’re going to blow you up, ourselves up, and the whole country up with us.’”

And finally we have “I feel a thrill running up my leg” Chris Matthews on MSNBC who said, “Well, the GOP has become the Wahhabis of American government, willing to risk bringing down the whole country in the service of their anti-tax ideology.”  You know the Wahhabis – the Muslim fundamentalists so often associated with hate.

Didn’t President Obama tell Americans to tone it down after the massacre at Tucson?  Liberal elites, I guess, didn’t get the message.

But I think I know why they’re throwing the T word around so much these days.  If I’m right, it’s because they got tired of throwing the R word around.  It wasn’t that long ago that liberal elites, especially those in what passes for the mainstream media, used to call conservative Republicans “racist” over the slightest disagreement with Mr. Obama.  Don’t like ObamaCare?  You’re a racist!  Don’t like spending nearly a trillion bucks on stimulus?  You’re a racist!

But that got old.  Nobody pays attention to that nonsense anymore.  If you’re a racist just because you didn’t like President Obama’s worldwide apology tour, then what word should we use to describe skinheads and neo Nazis who moronically toss the N word around to describe not only our president but anyone who looks like him.

So the elites had to try something new to fill the void, like calling conservatives with whom they disagree on fiscal policy “terrorists.” It gives them the satisfaction they so desperately need now that “racism” has become passe.

There’s a term for this, you know.  It’s called Liberal Hate Speech.

(After reading this column, a loyal Facebook friend send me this note, which I’d like to share with you:

“Remember how much negative press Sarah Palin got for simply posting ‘targets’ on a congressional district map? But somehow, left-wing pundits can actually compare people to terrorists merely because they want our country’s budget balanced. Something tells me that if some nut ever opens fire on people at a tea-party rally, none of these pundits and politicians will be taken to task for fueling hate against the tea-party.”

I’m afraid he’s right.)