Monday, August 2, 2004

Hate Speech?

Mary Matalin said on ABC’s This Week that the Democratic Convention was one long orgy of hate and negativity. This prompted hoots of disbelief and derision from her co-panelists including George F. Will. But let’s examine the evidence:

“If there’s a child on the South Side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me,” said Barack Obama, “even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper — that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. ‘E pluribus unum.’ Out of many, one.”

Meanwhile, leave it to Dennis Kucinich to find the WMDs. “Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction,” he said. “Joblessness … homelessness [are] weapons of mass destruction.”

And then John Edwards told us, “Hope is on the way. When you wake up and you’re sitting at the kitchen table with your kids, and you’re talking about the great possibilities in America, your kids should know that John [Kerry] and I believe, to our core, that tomorrow can be better than today.”

Which prompted Republican National Committee spokesman Jim Dyke to say, “This night exemplified the anger, pessimism and negativity of the Democratic Party.”

And to be fair to Mr. Dyke, Edwards did say, “We’re going to say no forever to any American working full-time and living in poverty. Not in our America, not in our America, not in our America.”

Grammatically speaking, that is pretty negative. [Salon.com]

Yeah, the Democrats were evil, wicked, and cruel to those poor pitiful Republicans.