YES, ORCINUS WAS CORRECT ABOUT THE WINGNUTS

And not just about the talk radio gasbags. There are plenty of examples not only of rank-and-file wingnuts claiming that liberals are EVIL, but also nationally-known GOP leaders. These people naturally use the "politics of personal destruction" and the most recent example is the attack on the Frost family because their 12-year old defended the SCHIP bill. The NY Times has a nice summary of the issue:

...Democrats enlisted 12-year-old Graeme Frost, who along with a younger sister relied on the program for treatment of severe brain injuries suffered in a car crash, to give the response to Mr. Bush’s weekly radio address on Sept. 29, Republican opponents quickly accused them of exploiting the boy to score political points.

Then, they wasted little time in going after him to score their own.

In recent days, Graeme and his family have been attacked by conservative bloggers and other critics of the Democrats’ plan to expand the insurance program, known as S-chip. They scrutinized the family’s income and assets — even alleged the counters in their kitchen to be granite — and declared that the Frosts did not seem needy enough for government benefits.


Ezra Klein asks "What has happened to the Right" and notes "Something has gone wrong on the Right. Become sick and twisted and tumorous and ugly." I don't want to be a smartass but Ezra seems to have been out of the loop. I've been listening to wingnut talk radio for several years and this personal attack on the Frost's is SOP (standard operating procedure) for the Noise Machine. These clowns STILL bring up Chappaquiddick whenever Sen. Ted Kennedy makes a statement they don't like. The STILL mention ABSCAM whenever Rep. John Murtha speaks out against the Iraq War.

The Times notes that Michelle Malkin was a big player in this attack and Malkin is busy now defending herself (thanx to Memeorandum, I don't have to give a direct link). She's claiming that liberals want to silence the Right but that's just another diversion. What she really opposes is criticism, especially moral criticism, of the Noise Machine.

I think this is another time when the Noise Machine has pissed off more than the "far-left." Here are a couple of examples from non-liberal bloggers:

John Cole (Balloon Juice):

I simply can not believe this is what the Republican party has become. I just can’t. It just makes me sick to think all those years of supporting this party, and this is what it has become. Even if you don’t like the S-Chip expansion, it is hard to deny what Republicans are- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious thugs, peering through people’s windows so they can make fun of their misfortune.

I’m registering Independent tomorrow.

Joe Gandelman (The Moderate Voice):

Those who support Bush and the group of win-one-for-our-team might perhaps focus their efforts countering arguments such as this. Then you’d have an actual back-and-forth debate over issues and come up with policy (which might be
different from the existing bill).

But no, it’s easier to go after a 12 year-old. After all, these days, anyone who is in the way of an agenda has to be discredited so that no one listens to them anymore.

Yet, once upon a time, American society would pull out all stops not to go after a kid. The bar has been lowered yet again.