We Democrats are becoming more skilled and unified in the presentation of our ideas. As our skills improve, we inevitably face attacks from conservatives and the traditional media on the forcefulness of our advocacy. We have been labeled shrill, immoderate, and frenzied for engaging in the very tactics long the mainstay of conservative pundits and commentators. In response to this charge, our natural temptation is to point out the ways in which these tactics have been used by Republicans - a variation on the argument "they did it first." We deride their hypocrisy, their sanctimony, and their `crocodile tears.' This is the wrong move. It gives up the high ground makes us look like we are in a race to the bottom.
More below the fold:
Take, for example, the following post by Digby:
-- TEXT FROM DIGBY FOLLOWS --
I don't know what class in Wingnut U teaches phony sanctimony, but it's clearly a requirement for graduation. Even the father of convicted felon Jack Abramoff has the unmitigated gall to pull a "this is not a goood man" on George Clooney:
He said the lobbyist's daughter, who was watching the show, was in "a fit of tears" after hearing Clooney's remarks.
"Are you proud of that?" Abramoff wrote. "Shame on you."
Huckleberry Graham would be proud. The man whose son, the orthodox Jew, just pled guilty to several felonies and is about to implicate his friends and colleagues in any number of crimes says, "shame on you" to someone who derides him publicly. It clearly didn't even occur to him that he had no legitimate claim to the moral high ground; it didn't occur to him that he should be hanging his head in shame himself. Indeed, he apparently felt entirely justified in publicly protesting that his son's immoral and criminal behavior was the subject of public derision.
No matter how nasty, how ruthless, how cruel or how unjust Republicans are (and they are) they never fail to shamelessly turn on the crocodile tears and blubber into their lace hankies like Miss Manners when Democrats say "enough." They have taken manipulative behavior to its most exalted level. Dems need to jettison the political strategists and start consulting psychologists.
-- END OF DIGBY'S POST --
I'm not disagreeing with Digby's analysis here - I happen to agree with everything written in this post (and many others). Hypocrisy, though, is the weakest of charges in a political context. It is hard to prove convincingly and it is, sadly enough, an expected part of political discourse. It focuses the subsequent dialogue on what they said and not on our message. A better way to respond when accused of shrillness:
1.) Define your critics as weak - "I'm sorry so and so thinks I'm shrill. These are important issues that matter to the country and I think we should all be strong enough to engage in a spirited exchange of ideas."
2.) Define yourself as passionate and engaged - "It's unfortunate that Mr. so-and-so thinks I'm being shrill. In the academic think tanks where he spends his time he must not be used to people caring about ideas and other people. This isn't some academic exercise for me - these are real people and real suffering and I think we need to be passionate and engaged."
3.) Stay on your message - "The issue here isn't how I'm presenting the message - it is the truth of the message for our constituents. Mr. so-and-so is trying to distract us from the real issue here."
In the political dialogue, we don't win by pointing out the reasons they are wrong. We win by pointing out the reasons we're right. We move to monopolize the conversation, keeping it on our subjects, or topics, our commitments. We run the table. If we are perfectly on our message, we only ever refer to them in passing - a tangential swipe on the way to a repetition of our key point(s). They key is practiced discipline and our blogs are as good a place as any to get in the habit.