Fred Barnes, of Faux News and the Weakly Standard, goes unplugged.
This has been building for awhile. It was especially high in the lead up to, and during "main combat operations" in Iraq. Dubya's narrow reelection win and the increase in GOP seats in November has no doubt emboldened the conservative establishment in its push to destroy Democracy at home while it obstensibly promotes it abroad.
Now in charge, conservatives would have us forget the Clinton years and the abundance of reckless personal charges they leveled at the president then, smear campaigns that included daughter Chelsea among the targets. Real values, that conservative crowd.
And I expect it to get worse. Naturally, the presence of the U.S. military over seas in an ongoing military conflict provides an extra layer of cover for anti-first amendment conservatives to do what they would do anyway, and that's attempt to suppress any and all opposition.
One hopes conservatives will be seen as overreaching. But I'm not hopeful. Once upon a time, before they seized power, conservatives were seen as the "radicals", the non-status quo party. Recall, if you will, the early estimates of Ronald Reagan, and later, Newt Gingrich. They were viewed as too rough around the edges, too extreme for the mainstream. But now, in the eyes of most of the media, what was radical has become the norm. As conservatives continue their attempts to turn back the clock on social welfare and individual liberty, liberals are busy playing defense on a ground of issues that were once, comfortably thought protected.
Academic freedom and political dissent are on the chopping block.
This is why Democrats cannot "move to the center".
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