Talking Points on the Right
5 January 2008For years now I’ve noticed how the left works off talking points. One day you hear some theme and suddenly it’s everywhere, virtually word for word. Whether it was “the politics of personal destruction” or “Republican corruption” it was clear that every Democrat talking head was working from the same play book, using virtually identical verbiage. But I never really noticed Republicans doing it.
Suddenly I’ve become very aware of the very same thing on the right. For several weeks it’s been lock step slamming of Huckabee with virtually the same language. I noticed the consistency a couple of weeks ago but today I noticed a new twist and it follows the exact same pattern the left uses.
On caucus night I noticed that Laura Ingraham started calling Huckabee a populist. Then she tied Huckabee to Obama with the populist label. Since then I’ve seen the same language used by virtually every commentator on the right, including the comparison between Huckabee and Obama.
Earlier this evening Laura Ingraham was filling in for Bill O’Reilly on FOX News. She coined a new term, Barack-abee, saying Huckabee and Obama are both populists and implying that there is no difference between them. Later this evening, on the way to the store, I was listening to the Rusty Humphries show on the radio. He followed the same pattern but he took it a step further. Humphries made the statement that populism always leads to something like Nazism.
The level of the rhetoric is escalating. I mentioned in a previous post that I thought the tone was moderating. It appeared so on caucus night but that is most certainly not the case. I don’t know who’s writing the talking points but whoever it is is definitely afraid of Huckabee. I can’t remember there ever being such a concerted effort on the right to derail a Republican. And if they can’t do it with the facts they are perfectly willing to resort to demagoguery. That’s just what this is.
I have no problem with anyone who has made up their mind for someone other than Huckabee. After all, we’re all different and not everyone is going to agree. But I have a real problem with demagogues whether they’re on the left or the right. And I’m rapidly losing respect for a number of commentators on the right whom I’ve previously had tremendous respect for. If Rush jumps on the same bandwagon come Monday I may have to give up talk radio altogether.
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January 7th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
I don’t know if you listened to Rush today. I didn’t catch much, but I did hear him indirectly all Huckabee a “populist.” Someone said they didn’t like people calling Huckabee a “populist” and Rush declared, “He is!”