Moderation from the Nation

Of all places.  Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, writing in the Washington Post. 

Here's a modest proposal for improving national political discussion: Stop equating our opponents with famous dictators, their chief executioners, police apparatus or ideologies. I'm all for learning from history, but times are hard enough in American politics -- with war, threats to national security, the greatest divide between rich and poor in our history and deep cultural divisions. Present differences deserve to be described in contemporary terms. The purpose of public speech is not just to restate anger but to clarify the principles and evidence that fuel it -- in ways that invite discussion, not inhibit it. The demons are already among us -- so let's muster up some new analogies and declare a ceasefire on such demonizing rhetoric as this:

Ms. Heuvel goes on to quote a considerable number of offenders on both the left and the right.  Hat tip to James Taranto, who notes that Heuval is not altogether innocent of such rhetoric.  If she'd asked us, SDP could have suggested its own candidates.