Circle-Jerk Firing Squad

Shorter Steve Waldman and Amy Sullivan: Most Democrats (or, at least, “elite” Democrats) have a knee-jerk hostility to religious people, which is why they despised churchgoing Southern Baptists like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore and the churchgoing Roman Catholic John Kerry, and why they have generally lionized the non-church-going Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Please, make it stop. I guess I need to cite Bob Somerby once again:

Let’s ignore that expansive escape clause and think of the Dem Party proper. We think it’s time for readers like this to name the names of actual Dems who have actually belittled them in this manner. Who exactly “addressed him publicly as intellectually challenged for holding to the faith of his fathers?” Was it Southern Baptist Bill Clinton, from Hot Springs, Arkansas? Was it Southern Baptist Al Gore, from Carthage, Tennessee? Was it Jimmy Carter? Was it Joe Lieberman? Was it John Edwards, from the reader’s own state? Or was it French-speaking John Kerry himself, the haughty man who dares to wind-surf? If so, when did this insult occur? When exactly has any Dem leader ever behaved in the manner described? When exactly did the Dem Party belittle the reader’s religious beliefs and “address him publicly as intellectually challenged?” When exactly did this occur? Or did it really occur in a dream? Or perhaps in a rant on talk radio?

Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo! For ourselves, we’re tired of all the blubbering self-pity which emanates hourly from talk radio. We heard it yesterday, right here in this city, as a “balanced” panel of four talk-show conservatives cried about “elitist” Dems who went to Harvard. Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo! Big wet tears splashed down their cheeks as these fakers and phonies tossed hay to the herd. For ourselves, we’re tired of being polite about all this self-pity and fakery. We think it’s time for Alterman’s reader to stand up on his feet like a man and name the names of the actual Dems who actually behaved in this manner.

Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo! The e-mailer thinks Iraq “is a train wreck and we need a entirely new direction.” But so what? He went ahead and voted for George Bush anyway—because he says that someone has belittled his faith. For ourselves, we’re tired of seeing “red-state” belly-achers turn off their radios and get a free pass on claims of this kind. Who is it? With respect to Alterman’s reader, who has “belittled his beliefs, dismissing them out of hand, and addressed him publicly as intellectually challenged?” It’s time for these people to name a few names—and it’s time for Dems, libs and centrists to make them.

What a glorious fantasy that would be! But, of course, rather than pointing out what inane propaganda this is, we have the editor of a prominent liberal publication repeating it. Really, the GOP has the easiest job in the world.