Can't We All Just Get Along?

Ms. Kathleen Parker isn't happy with the current state of affairs.

"When I was a kid, we were taught a few rules, among which was never talk about religion or politics in polite company.

Rarely have such quaint rules felt more timely. The heat of recent months amid increasingly bad news from Iraq has divided Americans as never before.

. . . These days I'd rather spend a night in Abu Ghraib, preferably absent Lynndie England, than talk politics at a dinner party. Friends report crossing streets unnecessarily to avoid a Rumsfeld debate. Longtime acquaintances take a silent measure of one another: Are you one of "them" or one of "us"?"

I don't get the chance to go to many dinner parties, but I take Parker's point. I mean you read the articles of Ann Coulter or David Limbaugh or Tony Blankley, you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage, and it's clear that there's a large segment of the conservative punditocracy that hates liberals and wants to see us eliminated.

But of course that's not what Parker is talking about is it? Instead she's mad that Senator Edward Kennedy is still around and able to criticize President Bush for the abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison (Senator Kennedy's line was deliberately shocking, and may have surpassed the bounds of good taste). She concludes her essay with this line.

"When public discourse degenerates to hate speech, when friends cross streets to avoid one another, when Americans can't tell the difference between Bush and Saddam, the terrorists may well be winning."

So the upshot of this is, that liberals should shut up and stop trying to get John Kerry (or anybody else elected). If we liberals would just give it up and become conservatives, than all the bickering would end.

You see if she was in favor of actually getting along and improving the discourse she would discuss the excesses of Ann Coulter or Michael Savage (to pick two). But she's not. All this talk about getting along boils down to one simple truth; conservatives know they don't have much of a leg to stand on right now and they don't want liberals to point that out.

Still, maybe Mr. Blankley's sedition laws will take care of this for her.