Compare and Contrast

This, from David Horowitz, via Sullivan:

[Al] Franken is now a U.S. Senator in part because conservatives of whom you are typical want to conduct politics by the Marquis of Queensberry rules when the other side is in it as war in which destruction of the enemy is the game. Franken calls us evil. You call him mistaken (and unfunny). And you want other conservatives to do the same. The more conservatives who follow your advice the more we will lose. Personally, I am thrilled with what is happening now in the conservative movement – our aggressive media like Fox and talk radio, the emergence of enraged conservative masses – the tea baggers – as leftist half-wits like to dismiss them. It is this energized, unapologetic, in-your-face (but also civilized and intelligent) conservative base on whom the future not only of the movement but the country depends.

Let me see, now -- murdering doctors, taking assault weapons to presidential appearances, demanding that the government keep its hands off Medicare -- these are all the responses of a civilized and intelligent group of citizens. OK.

With this, from Bill Clinton, via Digby:

Well, people like that who want to share our freedoms must know that their bitter words can have consequences and that freedom has endured in this country for more than two centuries because it was coupled with an enormous sense of responsibility on the part of the American people.

If we are to have freedom to speak, freedom to assemble, and, yes, the freedom to bear arms, we must have responsibility as well. And to those of us who do not agree with the purveyors of hatred and division, with the promoters of paranoia, I remind you that we have freedom of speech, too, and we have responsibilities, too. And some of us have not discharged our responsibilities. It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.

Digby makes the connection:

This isn't about civility. In fact, too many people are far too civil about this. We have a faction in American politics that is once again driving its followers into such hysteria that there is every likelihood that we will see this again:



That didn't come out of nowhere.


In that spirit, I'm calling bullshit on Horowitz.