Clintonite Lanny Davis writes in the Wall Street Journal on the vile bile of the Lamont Left:

This kind of scary hatred, my dad used to tell me, comes only from the right wing–in his day from people such as the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, with his tirades against “communists and their fellow travelers.” The word “McCarthyism” became a red flag for liberals, signifying the far right’s fascistic tactics of labeling anyone a “communist” or “socialist” who favored an active federal government to help the middle class and the poor, and to level the playing field.

I came to believe that we liberals couldn’t possibly be so intolerant and hateful, because our ideology was famous for ACLU-type commitments to free speech, dissent and, especially, tolerance for those who differed with us. And in recent years–with the deadly combination of sanctimony and vitriol displayed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage–I held on to the view that the left was inherently more tolerant and less hateful than the right.

Now, in the closing days of the Lieberman primary campaign, I have reluctantly concluded that I was wrong. The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony. Here are just a few examples (there are many, many more anyone with a search engine can find) of the type of thing the liberal blog sites have been posting about Joe Lieberman:

• “Ned Lamont and his supporters need to [g]et real busy. Ned needs to beat Lieberman to a pulp in the debate and define what it means to be an AMerican who is NOT beholden to the Israeli Lobby” (by “rim,” posted on Huffington Post, July 6, 2006).

• “Joe’s on the Senate floor now and he’s growing a beard. He has about a weeks growth on his face. . . . I hope he dyes his beard Blood red. It would be so appropriate” (by “ctkeith,” posted on Daily Kos, July 11 and 12, 2005).

• On “Lieberman vs. Murtha”: “as everybody knows, jews ONLY care about the welfare of other jews; thanks ever so much for reminding everyone of this most salient fact, so that we might better ignore all that jewish propaganda [by Lieberman] about participating in the civil rights movement of the 60s and so on” (by “tomjones,” posted on Daily Kos, Dec. 7, 2005).

• “Good men, Daniel Webster and Faust would attest, sell their souls to the Devil. Is selling your soul to a god any worse? Leiberman cannot escape the religious bond he represents. Hell, his wife’s name is Haggadah or Muffeletta or Diaspora or something you eat at Passover” (by “gerrylong,” posted on the Huffington Post, July 8, 2006).

• “Joe Lieberman is a racist and a religious bigot” (by “greenskeeper,” posted on Daily Kos, Dec. 7, 2005).

And these are some of the nicer examples.

Yup, tip of the iceberg. But it’s nothing new.

Dean Barnett has it right:

The common argument seems to be that a Lamont victory will transform the Democrats. Alas, that transformation was completed long ago. While a Lamont victory would symbolize that transformation, it too will change nothing.

Campaign round-up from Allah. Ian catches Stephanopoulos doubting Lamont over the Blackface Debacle. The New York Times covers Joementum and Nedrenaline.

The Sixers blog has wall-to-wall midterm election coverage.

David Limbaugh says Dem gloating is premature: “No matter how tough things get for conservatives, Democrats are inescapably hostage to their militant base and otherwise ill-equipped to lead the world against the global Islamofascist jihad — facts not lost on most voters.”

Mark Levin says what I meant to point out about the Davis piece:

Davis smears conservatives generally as intolerant and hateful, using his false characterization as a basis to compare loathsome attacks by liberal bloggers against his friend, Joe Lieberman…

…As an aside, no one has been more steadfast and thoughtful in his support of Israel than Rush (indeed, no one has been more intelligent in their exposition of conservatism than Rush). Moreover, George Bush — the Republican president Lanny Davis and his liberal ilk undermine on a daily basis — has been spectacular in his defense of Israel, unlike so many Davis’s fellow Democrats. And while Davis correctly condemns the poison flowing from his own side, this is a serious problem for the Left, not the Right. Our nuts are on the fringes; his nuts run the DNC, their PACs, and their think-tanks.

Davis was a mouthpiece for one of the most corrupt president’s in history. More to the point, Bill Clinton and his wife were specialists at using slurs and personal attacks against their opponents (including numerous women). Davis defended all of it.

We are nothing like the Left.

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