Finally finally finally someone

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Finally, finally, finally someone has the good sense and courage to point out how hideously unfair and outrageous those charges are about the Gore campaign trying to deny soldiers their right to vote. (A few days ago Talking Points said the Republicans were playing the Sturm und Drang, Stab-in-the-Back, Last-Days-of-the-Weimar-Republic card. He thought that was pretty clever. But it was too generous, because too jocular.)

Listen to Florida Democrat Peter Deutsch last night on Crossfire:

Let me just talk a little bit about the whole, I guess, spin from the Republicans about — which has been to me the absolute most — the worst statements I have ever heard probably in my life about anything. I mean, almost a blood libel by the Republicans towards Al Gore, saying that he was trying to stop men and women in uniform that are serving this country from voting. That is the most absurd thing and absolutely has no basis in fact at all.

Alright, alright, not the most articulate guy in the world. But you get his point!

“…almost a blood libel.” That’s pretty strong stuff. Strong, but not too strong. Because it’s true.

(Deutsch can get away with this statement, in part, because he’s Jewish. But so is Talking Points; so he gets a pass too!)

You don’t just toss around charges that the possible next president of the United States is conspiring to take the vote away from American soldiers overseas. Given the volatility of the moment and the divisions already existing in American society it really is almost like a blood libel. Almost.

People in the press should have called the Bushies on this rather than treating their new line of attack as if it were nothing more serious than the dissing and trash-talking one hears on the Jerry Springer show.

Talking Points was going to leave it at that. But then he read Tom Friedman’s column in the NYT this morning. Friedman said:

Our armed forces, the courts, the federal government – these are the nonpartisan institutions we need to hold our country together once there is a partisan outcome to this election. It was out of line for Ms. Hughes to imply that our armed forces are pro- Republican and that the Democrats were trying to prevent them from voting. Ms. Hughes might as well have called Mr. Gore a traitor. It would be like Mr. Gore accusing Mr. Bush of bigoted motives because he resisted recounts in counties with heavy black and Jewish populations. You just don’t talk that way about the man who might be our next president.

Talking Points couldn’t have said it better himself. I guess that’s why Friedman is on the Op-Ed page of the NYT and Talking Points … well, just has Talking Points.

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