Democrats aren’t wrong when they say that the Lamont victory was a defining moment. It defined the Democratic Party as a vigorous, motivated, organized force that is … completely out of touch with mainstream America. ~Kathleen Parker

Sixty percent of Americans oppose the U.S. war in Iraq, the highest number since polling on the subject began with the commencement of the war in March 2003, according to poll results and trends released Wednesday.

And a majority of poll respondents said they would support the withdrawal of at least some U.S. troops by the end of the year, according to results from the Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last week on behalf of CNN. ~CNN 

Perhaps Ms. Parker can explain how the “perfectly respectable” candidate, the “attractive” Ned Lamont, who expresses the feelings of all those who are “disgusted with the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war” represents a far-left “machine” that is personified by Michael Moore.  Michael Moore, as many will attest, is neither attractive nor “perfectly respectable,” and rather crucially has nothing to do with what happened in Connecticut.  Ah, but, of course, it is not just Michael Moore’s charming demeanour and his “manifesto” that offend.  What is the real problem with the Connecticut primary result?

But Americans also share a reflexive resistance to Stalinist tactics. 

Of course.  How could I have missed the gulags of Greenwich, the collective farms of Danbury, the show trials of Hartford?  The 2006 Purges were particularly harsh.  But I must have been out of touch with the “mainstream” that perceives an incumbent’s loss of his party’s nomination as a result of Stalinism. 

Last I checked, “Stalinist tactics” referred to the tactics of Iosif Vissarionovich Dzughashvili, Soviet Georgian mass murderer and all around despot, whose preferred method of eliminating rivals consisted of denunciation, show trial, Siberian exile and/or execution.  Sometimes he would change it up by working you to death or starving your entire nation into submission.  Other times he would simply unleash the Red Army on your country.  Ms. Parker likes her appalling comparison so well that she brings it back again later:

Moore’s manifesto, through which he may have lost a few grammarians, is straight out of Stalin’s playbook under ‘P’ for purge. Like Stalin, the operatives who ousted Lieberman are determined to remove dissidents from The Party.  

Yes, holding elected representatives’ feet to the fire over an unwise and unpopular policy is just like what Stalin did to his political enemies.  How did I not see it?  Joe Lieberman’s situation is just like that of Kamenev!  NEP, DLC, it’s all the same!  Who could possibly think otherwise, except for some kind of Stalinist? 

Now has Lieberman been sent to Siberia?  Is he even now in a cell in Solovki?  Has he been shot by some NKVD goon and buried in an unmarked grave?  If so, he seems awfully lively for a victim of “Stalinist tactics.”  And if he has suffered from “Stalinist tactics,” does that make Ned Lamont into Stalin?  I cannot think of a more perverse sort of comparison.  What an offensive way to triviliase the deaths of tens of millions of people, making a cheap talking point out of one of the worst tyrants in history over something as petty and small as a New England Senate primary.  Not even the “centrist” Democrats, who have more of an immediate stake in Lieberman’s loss than GOP hacks ever will, have been resorting to this level of filthy, appalling rhetoric.

Question: when the White House and Tom “the Hammer” DeLay engaged in massive arm-twisting to force the House GOP to approve the abominable Medicare D plan–in contravention of every alleged conservative principle for which the GOP was supposed to stand–was that an exercise in party discipline or was it Stalinism?  When the White House consistently lends its support to incumbent candidates in primaries, including such awful Republicans as Arlen Specter, is it wielding the truncheon of Stalin and purging dissidents or is it following a consistent, if flawed, plan to support incumbent office-holders?  As bad as the Medicare policy itself was and is, I don’t remember a lot of conservative pundits complaining about Stalinist this or Leninist that.  When the GOP imposes discipline and order–whether for good or bad policies–it is supposedly an example “leadership.”  When the other side does it, and opposes a policy to which the GOP is joined at the hip, it is extremism, “lynching,” and, of course, an example of “Stalinist tactics.”    

Earlier today I called the violent language of certain GOP hacks the rise of a “fascist style,” but perhaps I was mistaken.  Perhaps it is really more along the lines of the sort of Newspeak that the Soviets themselves mastered, where language meant what the ruling party wanted it to mean and treason and counter-revolution were what they decided it was.  Today’s ruling party apparatchiks–those who belong to the War Party–seem equally keen to bend and abuse language and ideas to suit their purposes, including such outlandish charges as this.  In their world winning an election against a candidate that the Party favours is to engage in Stalinism, while the Party’s unflagging support for a war of aggression must be purely and truly American.