My Thursday column examines the Republican definition of “civility” and “class.”
Predictably, the Romney campaign and its apparatchiks at Fox News accused the Democrats of lacking “civility” during the first day of their convention. RNC chairman Reince Priebus called the Democrats “classless” for showing an old 1994 video of Ted Kennedy debating (and embarrassing) a decidedly more liberal Mitt Romney.
You know who shouldn’t be lecturing the Democrats about civility? The people who gave us swift-boating, the Southern Strategy, the outing of Valerie Plame, Birthers, Reverend Wright videos around the clock, “Obama pals around with domestic terrorists,” the exploitation of 9/11, comparing a triple amputee Vietnam veteran to Saddam Hussein, the booing of a gay soldier, and the party that sported Purple Heart band-aids at the 2004 convention to mock another decorated Vietnam veteran, John Kerry, who was wounded in combat. And no one on the floor of the Democratic convention hurled peanuts at an African American camerawomen, shouting, “This is how we feed the animals.”
Yes, the Democratic speakers unapologetically jabbed Romney for having a Swiss bank account and for being a shameless prevaricator. They criticized his policy proposals for being the usual Reaganomics claptrap we’ve heard during every election and, accurately enough, how eerily similar policies caused the recession. There’s a difference between taking fair shots at an opponent and the reprehensible tactics routinely exercised by the Republicans. Continue reading here.