Former Clinton Aide Denounces the Haters on the Left (Finally)

Some Democrats, who have long had the mistaken idea that their party is the party of tolerance and inclusion, are waking up to the reality that there are people driving their party today that are so full of hatred and bile that they're almost incoherant with rage. Lanny Davis, who never spared the feelings of Republicans he attacked, is finding himself attacked by the nutroots who support One-Note Ned Lamont in today's Connecticut primary, and Lanny doesn't like what he sees (from the Wall Street Journal):

My brief and unhappy experience with the hate and vitriol of bloggers on the liberal side of the aisle comes from the last several months I spent campaigning for a longtime friend, Joe Lieberman.

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.

Welcome to our world, Mr. Davis. Conservatives have long been on the receiving end of the haters in your party, but until now because they weren't aiming at you, you've ignored them (and probably even encouraged them). While the far right has its moments, it's paled in comparison to the hatred regularly spewed by the left. On occasions when posts of mine have been linked at lefty websites, I've been inundated with comments that were so full of expletives and pure hate that I couldn't allow them to be posted to the site. You wouldn't believe the stuff I've had to toss out.

The question now, Mr. Davis, is what are you and the crowd you consider sane going to do about it? Writing an op-ed in the Journal is nice, but if you're going to weed out the haters, the party is going to have to be willing to stand up to the nutroots, including chief nutroot himself Howard Dean, to ensure they are not overrun by the crazies. So far I haven't seen too many Dems willing to take on that task.