Just about a year ago USA Today ran a story on Sen. Daschle that quoted thim thusly:
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle on Monday decried what he called the "startling meanness" of American politics.
"Demonizing those with whom we disagree politically does not serve the interests of democracy. It does not resolve differences," the South Dakota Democrat said to about 500 people at Kansas State University.
"Today, enormous new challenges confront each and every one of us," he said. "We will not meet those challenges or seize those opportunities if we indulge in the brutal politics of division, if we attempt to silence those who have other ideas."
A local blog has decried the malignancy and derogation of the political climate and are calling for more reasoned debate. They don't want us stalking them, which means reading them, so I won't link this time.
Yesterday, Q mentioned the vulgarity coming from an organizer of an anti-Thune group.
Now we get this, courtesy Powerline.
Michelle Malkin notes other goods for sale that encourage the killing of the president. Many of us saw on Drudge the other day a t-shirt for sale begging Tom Delay to commit suicide. There is the string of attacks (from mere heckling to a couple pie throwing incidents) on conservative speakers on campuses. Let's not forget the "Bush is Hitler" ads that Moveon.org used to show. I am not a pollyanna when it comes to politics, so I can take strong disagreement that sometimes sinks into name calling. That's just part of the mess that is democratic politics. And I won't deny the right had its own issues during the Clinton years (remember the Clinton Chronicles) but the level of Bush hatred seems unprecedented for recent times (say, for the last century at least). I wonder if the items noted above are enough to qualify as "startling meanness" or "politics of division."
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