Peggy Noonan is part of a political movement whose most influential leaders routinely accuse their political opponents of being allies of The Terrorist. Ask Michael Reagan what should be done with Howard Dean (he "should be hung for treason or put in a hole until the end of the Iraq war!"). Or ask the graceful, dissent-loving John Hinderaker what he thinks of Jimmy Carter (he "isn't just misguided or ill-informed. He's on the other side"). Ask the civil, graceful Mark Levin about Bill Clinton's mental health ("Bill Clinton is nuttier than a pecan pie"). Or listen to Byron York reference anti-anxiety medications and wonder about the "emotionally volatile" Howard "Dean's emotional intensity and whether such intensity should be a disqualifying characteristic for a potential president."
In fact, virtually every leading Democratic political figure at one point or another has been accused of not just merely being a terrorist sympathizer, but mentally ill. Ask Charles Krauthammer about what psychological medications Al Gore needs to be taking, repeated by graceful, dissent-loving John Podhoretz (“It is now clear that Al Gore is insane . . . There is every reason to believe that Albert Gore Jr., desperately needs help. I think he needs medication, and I think that if he is already on medication, his doctors need to adjust it or change it entirely"), or Oliver North ("Somebody needs to check this guy's medication. This guy has got a problem"), or David Frum ("a National Psychological Council would be a good idea after all -- and maybe it could start by advising [Al Gore] ought to seek out for his own good a cool and quiet darkened room"), or the graceful, civil Sean Hannity ("He's [Al Gore's] really nuts").
As wind sweeps through your hair, just behold the civil grace and the love of political disagreement that is so tragically missing on "the left" but that is in such abundant, ample, graceful display over there on "the right." It's so moving. And none of that even digs as low as one could to the graceful, dissent-worshipping likes of Michelle "Liberals-are-Unhinged" Malkin, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann "Liberals-are-Treasonous-and-Godless" Coulter.
Whenever these sorts of "points" are made -- comparing the extremism and hatred of dissent on the left and the right -- one thing you will notice is that the examples used for "the left" are virtually always totally obscure and inconsequential figures dragged into the public eye (Deb Frisch, Ward Churchill, tens of random Columbia college kids), anonymous and unnamed individuals ("blog critics" or buried Kos or Democratic Underground commenters), or frivolous entertainers who have nothing to do with the Democratic Party (Harry Belafonte, Rosie O'Donnell, Barbra Streisand).
By contrast, one never needs to dig and search that way to find examples of such dissent-hating behavior on the Right. Instead, the examples are found easily and abundantly among the leading and most influential pundits and political figures of the Right (see above). That's because the type of dissent intolerance which Noonan is so poetically and profoundly lamenting is found in isolated, inconsequential clusters on "the left," but it is one of the core strategies, a defining tactic, of the Bush-led Right.
Really, what could be more laughable and hypocritical than for someone who is a follower of the Bush movement, like Noonan, to write a column sermonizing about the need to tolerate dissent and to conduct ourselves with grace and civility in political debates while preening around as though they are on the side of dissent, grace and civility? I think the answer to that question is "nothing."
So here's how you can be a right-wing Bushian defender of civil discourse.
1. Dig up some quotes from the likes of random college students, Barbra Streisand, Rosie O'Donnell, and some random commenters at Daily Kos.
2. Make the false argument that they represent the dominant tone of liberal or Democratic discourse.
3. Ignore the leading figures (Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh) on the authoritarian Right who engage in this behavior on a daily basis.
4. Have another drink of kool-aid.
Oh, and Peggy, go fuck yourself.
We're sick of people questioning our patriotism for questioning the President. We're sick of being nice to people who are aghast that people don't like being called terrorists for having a dissenting opinion. We're also sick of being nice to people who accuse us of engaging in a behavior that the accusers have employed as a tactic since 9/11 to quiet dissent and demonize Democrats as America-haters.
So, take your fatuous bullshit about grace, civil discourse, and dissent and shove it up your hypocritical ass.
UPDATE: Examples of Peggy's own contributions to civil discourse can be found here.
In terms of Noonan herself, travel back to last year's Terri Schiavo right-to-die controversy and try to find the grace hidden in the insults Noonan hurled against anyone who disagreed with her radical notion that Congress needed to overrule the rights of Schiavo's husband and keep Terri alive via legislation. To Noonan, her opponents had a "bizarre passion" for death, were "unstable," "unhinged," and "red-fanged and ravenous." She warned that they were paving "the low road that twists past Columbine and leads toward Auschwitz."And keep in mind that, by 2000, Noonan had literally run out of ways to call Clinton a creep and a predator (she once suggested he was being sexually blackmailed by Fidel Castro's intelligence service), so she started demonizing Al Gore, who was "not fully stable" and "altogether as strange and disturbing as Bill Clinton." And Noonan was actually late to the Gore name-calling game, which formed the foundation for mainstream conservative commentary during the 2000 election when Gore was "a monster willing to trash the whole country" (The National Review; 12/04/00) as well as being "self-obsessed, conniving, dangerous" (The Weekly Standard; 12/04/00).
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