Every once in a while, you come across a post that just make you shake your head and wonder how the hell some pundits are not unemployed. Mark Levin's
NRO post is one of them.
Levin:
And yet, judicial-confirmation hearing after judicial-confirmation hearing -- during the terms of Republican presidents -- there sits Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee using every sleazy tactic fed to him by every sleazy left-wing group to destroy the reputation of honorable men and women.
From Clement Haynsworth, William Rehnquist, Bob Bork, and Clarence Thomas, to Jeff Sessions, Bill Pryor, Charles Pickering, and Sam Alito -- and scores of others -- Kennedy has played the role of McCarthy for 40 years, and always to a fawning press. He's a greater menace than McCarthy ever was.
Levin concludes:
In 1954, the Senate censured McCarthy for his behavior. Today's Senate lacks the statesmen to censure Kennedy, and the media lack the integrity to expose him. Thus, the next nominee can expect to be subjected to Kennedyism.
A typical argument from the Right is to make comparisons so utterly absurd as to turn discussion on its head. Indeed, Levin seems to prefer a judicial confirmation which is but a rubber stamp in okaying nominees. This is, once again, a dangerous proposition. What Ted Kennedy did during the Alito hearings, and has done in the past, is part of the normal checks and balances in scrutinizing judicial nominees. To compare this to McCarthyism, a practice which sought to smear fine standing Americans in a Congressional witchhunt, is typical of the Right's bulls...rhetorical flourish.
McCarthy was obsessed with finding, smearing and destroying anyone he believed was associated with the Communist Party beyond restraint, beyond proof to the contrary and beyond reason. He pulled no punches in labeling a perceived opponent treasonous and an enemy of the state. He was, by all measures, a precursor to the fear-based politics the Right employes today. To compare Senator Kennedy, a man who has fought for equality, civil rights, human rights and social justice to a exploitative slanderer is undignified. Kennedy has not organized and conducted witchhunts but has sought to question judicial nominees which determine the future of our nation. He has not obsessively sought to destroy individuals but rather shine a light on those we choose the make the tough decisions that our nation faces.
That Andrew Sullivan labels this Levin piece as a 'Malkin Award Nominee' goes to show an indifference to historical accuracy...a leveling of all-things to partisan warfare and its accompanying rhetoric. Then again, this funhouse hall-of-mirrors should be expected from those who support a party which goes against the Constitutional history and basis of this nation's values. This should also be expected from those that prefer to view those on the left through misinformation and fear-based rhetoric. In that respect, they seem to have forgotten the lesson that we all should have learned from McCarthy...that fear is a dangerous weapon which the nation must be aware of in its effects on public opinion. It's an all-too important point that seems to have been lost in the modern politics of fear, division and marginalization.