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Saturday, July 08, 2006

Rethinking the Republican loonies

Joe Conason suggests that Democrats should probably start taking a harsher look at some of the high-profile Republican whackos, specifically David Horwitz:

In a calmer political environment, an obviously deranged individual like Horowitz could be dismissed as comic relief. But with substantial resources and friends in the White House, including Karl Rove and the president, he is more than a mere crank. He is long overdue for exposure and repudiation by the mainstream media, whose attention he so plainly craves.

If the Times or any other newspaper were to examine Horowitz's "treason" campaign, perhaps the first place to look would be at this remarkable confession of his own central role in publishing American national security secrets in a magazine he edited three decades ago. As blogger Scoobie Davis once observed, the former radical leftist did exactly what he now accuses others of doing - and admitted that he hoped to damage American security. Is there a statute of limitations on his offense?

The story to which he links on Horowitz's self-described "treason" is Spy Stories: The Wen Ho Lee Cover-Up by David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine.com 12/03/2000. Conason has characterized Horowitz' article correctly. Although I would caution that Horowitz' relationship to the truth is shaky enough to not put any reliance on the description of facts he gives without some further confirmation.

The point that Conason is making, though, is that Horowitz describes himself as having committed treason in publishing a story decades ago in Ramparts magazine, a story of which Horowitz says, "The New York Times gave our story front-page coverage".

The reminds me of something the historian Bernard DeVoto wrote back during the 1950s in relation to the former Communists like Whittaker Chambers who had become raving rightwingers.

Chambers himself remains a conservative hero, which is kind of odd since he was a former Soviet spy and bisexual. And DeVoto's comments was about the general strangeness of the pitch that people like that typically made, much as Horowitz makes today as he warns an unsuspecting public about the treasonous intention of Democrats and leftwingers who he thinks are somehow in league with ultra-reactionary Islamic fundamentalists.

DeVoto said - quoting him indirectly because I don't have the text in front of me - that it's a peculiar argument these people make. They are saying, hey, I used to be a Communist and maybe a spy and in that role I was willing to lie, kill and betray my country if it became necessary. And because I used to the kind of person who was willing to lie, kill and commit treason, you should put special credibility on what I'm telling you now when I say you have to reject basic freedoms to protect yourselves from these dangerous Commies and liberals.

DeVoto asked, wouldn't it be more sensible to listen to people who had never been willing to lie, kill and commit treason on behalf of a foreign power?

Aside from the factual and legal questions of whether publishing the Ramparts article really was treason - Horowitz notes that they weren't prosecuted for it - it would be perfectly accurate to call Horowitz a "self-described traitor to the United States". Although I'm sure he would prefer a milder designation like "former traitor".

Then, of course, there Mad Annie Coulter. Raw Story recently published a piece by John Steinberg called Ann Coulter Republicans, in which he suggests that Democrats hang Mad Annie like a scarlet letter onto Republican candidates this year. Steinberg reminds us of a bit of her history:

The question, "Are you an Ann Coulter Republican?" should confront every Republican running for every office in the land, from President to dog catcher. Every Democratic candidate should accuse his or her opponent of being in favor of poisoning Supreme Court Justices and killing Congressmen. At every opportunity, every Republican should be made to answer: "Do you agree with Ann Coulter that the 9/11 widows are witches and harpies?" And George W. Bush, Tony Snow, Dick Cheney, Laura Bush and Barney (the only lapdog with a good excuse) should be confronted with these questions as well.

Republicans have been able to maintain a Kabuki symbiosis with all manner of cave-dwellers by speaking in an elaborate, dog whistle-like code. They hold racists, homophobes and rapture acolytes close enough to keep their votes without ever having to either publicly embrace or disavow such extreme viewpoints. That relationship with white-sheet America has been essential to their electoral strategy for decades. ...

Many lefties wonder why we give Coulter the prominence she so clearly craves. They think we lose by raising her profile. But I think she is exactly the hate-contorted face we want on the Republican Party. We need to make Ann Coulter the third rail of Republican politics, just as Michael Moore was for Democrats two years ago. (They can be equally significant as symbols; there is obviously no comparison in talent or accuracy.)

Sounds about right to me.

posted at 3:34:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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