Who Carries the Water?

This weekend, Lil' Orphan Annie was at it again, calling John Edwards a "faggot" at the Conservative Political Action Committee meeting. On one level, not much to write about. As her popularity fades, I suspect we will see more outrageous statements, more extreme rhetoric, and a lot more cleavage from A.C. She will break a heel trying to keep up with the spotlight as it moves stage left.

On another level, the episode drives home a point. At least during my political lifetime, and in the twenty years preceding it, the purveyors of hate, smears, bigotry, and intolerance have been exclusively men and women of the right who carry the water of the Republican Party. While the conventional political wisdom is that the hatchetman is bipartisan, there really is no leftish equivalent to Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Anne Coulter, or Karl Rove. All these people have either held positions within various Republican administrations or are unabashed advocates of the GOP.

The closest thing the Democrats have come to the bare knuckles is James Carville, who was colorful but never bigoted. In the late 1990s the National Review published a long piece that came to terms with anti semitism in the conservative movement. The Nation has never had to do similar soul searching. The Democratic Party has never adopted a "Northern Strategy" aimed at kicking up racial insecurities as did the GOP's infamous "Southern Strategy".

I suppose there are many good willed people out there who identify with the Republican Party or the conservative cause for any number of deluded reasons. Do they ever think about the company they keep?