I ask you, today, to consider a hypothetical scenario.
In this hypothetical scenario, there’s a "progressives conference" that’s held in Washington D.C. Most of the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination attend. At one point during the convention, John Edwards speaks. As he finishes speaking, he introduces Michael Moore, and proceeds to stand at the back of the stage while Moore speaks.
At the end of his speech, Moore refers to former Governor Mitt Romney as a "faggot." Edwards stands there, and says nothing. None of the Democratic presidential candidates take Moore to task, in any way.
If my hypothetical situation were to occur, how much attention would it receive from the mainstream media? Would it make the nightly news? Would it make the major newspapers? Would the "respectable punditry" crowd inside the beltway let loose with a torrent of editorials decrying the decline of "decency" and "civility" in American politics?
Because my situation is a hypothetical, we can’t say for sure. However, we can look at past examples – such as John Kerry’s botched joke – and draw our conclusions from those.
Given what I’ve seen, my guess is that Moore’s comments would be one of the top news stories for the next several cycles. And, I’m willing to bet that most of you agree with me.
Recently, my hypothetical situation occurred. Only, instead of Michael Moore at a progressives conference, it was Ann Coulter at a Conservative Political Action Committee Conference. And, instead of slurring Mitt Romney, Coulter called former Senator John Edwards a "faggot." As of this writing, not a single Republican presidential candidate has taken her to task – including Romney, who was in the room. Nor has the mainstream media deemed this event as being "newsworthy."
Indeed, Coulter’s comments seem to have drawn attention primarily on liberal blog sites such as DailyKos. Given that what she said was a degrading, immature, and inexcusable attack on a man who could very well be the next Democratic presidential nominee, you would expect the community here, of all places, to be strongly in favor of standing up for him.
Strangely, that’s not the case. Instead, we have people arguing that we should just "ignore" Coulter’s comments. That, somehow, by responding to them, we "play into her hands." Or that, "everyone knows that Coulter is a wingbat," therefore we should just ignore her because "nothing she says should be news."
Such arguments are patently false, and fly in the face of every major political lesson that progressives have learned – or should have learned – in the past 30 years. We play into the hands of Coulter – and the right wing – by ignoring her, because a complacent liberalism that fails to stand up for itself is a liberalism that fails, period. And, while it is a fact that it’s not news for Coulter to say something divisive, that is not a fact that we should be willing to accept.
One of the major problems facing progressive activists and advocates is the different standards that are applied to us, versus conservatives. If Ann Coulter, or Rush Limbaugh, or Bill O’Reilly says something that’s outrageous, or ignorant, or simply untrue, they generally receive no attention over it. However, if a progressive voice crosses the line – or, if Senator Jim Webb gets in a snit with President Bush – we are, at best, guaranteed to see the likes of George F. Will writing about how "haughty" and "arrogant" those Democrats are. At worst, we’ll see the offending comments played over and over again every evening on the nightly news.
These differing standards put Democrats at a competitive disadvantage beyond the world of the mainstream media, precisely for the reason that there is a wide swath of the American public that doesn’t follow politics – or political pundits – very closely. All they know about Coulter, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and their cohorts is what they see in the 10-second sound bites on the news every evening. As a result, they fail to realize how truly nasty and mean spirited such right-wing pundits are, and they easily brush off any Democrat or progressive who tries to tell them the truth as being "overly partisan." And, on the rare occasions that the Coulters or Limbaughs of the world do cross the line and say something that lands them in the national spotlight, that same wide swath of the American public can dismiss those comments as "aberrations" or "slip ups" that don’t "truly reflect what the person is really like."
That political discourse is declining in this country today is a common perception, especially among progressives. And, it is primarily people like Coulter who are responsible for that decline. The failure of the mainstream media to record the rancor and hatred they spew on a common basis only serves to give the very pundits responsible for lowering our national standards more respectability than they ever deserve.
The need to recover a polite, thoughtful political discourse in America – one that, by its very nature, would benefit progressives - is a political value. Like all other political values, it is one that needs to be fought for in the political arena.
A key lesson that we should have learned over the past 30 years – the lesson that we should have taken from the failures of Michael Dukakis and John Kerry - is that, in the political arena, only those who are willing to stand up for themselves, and their values, reign supreme.
Who here is willing to stand up?