The Voice of Saruman

In soft, smooth. seductive language, right-wing pundit Cal Thomas assures us, in his Independence day column, that he acknowledges and respects the patriotism of his ideological opponents, and oh-so-piously decries the division that some have sown using the patriotism card. His reasonable and concilatory tones lull us in letting our guard down, as hope of the "reform-ability" of even the most recalcitrant is an essential feature of liberal thought. Like Saruman, though, his words are in fact tools--nay, weapons--to weaken our resolve, sow doubt and dissention among our ranks, and use us to prop up the dying neoconservative movement, as his next column so cleverly tries to do.

Having convinced us (he hopes) that he has forsworn his own history of ugly vitriolic partisanship, he attacks the "rank partisanship of the Democratic congressional leadership". He claims "liberal blogs are full of hatred for President Bush" and "are beyond debating his policies". In fact, debating Bush's policies are the major topic at most liberal blogs, and the dishonest conflation of policy disagreement with "Bush Derangement Syndrome" is one of the many ways that quasi-fascist demagogues like Cal try to delegitimize criticism of Bush's policies without actually addressing the criticism itself. He asks the opponents of the Bush-Cheney regime to be quiet, to make no criticism of the regime for the next 18 months, and to dilute the responsibility of George Bush, the Republican Party, and the entire 21st century American right wing for the debacle of the last 6 1/2 years by participating in " a panel of prominent Democrats and Republicans to help him[Bush] No where in the entire column is there any suggestion of any "rank partisanship" on the other side of the aisle. No where is any acknowledgement of Bush's well-documented life-long history of obstinate refusal to accept any advice contradictory to his own preconceived ideas (such as the Iraq Study Group).

Like Saruman, Cal hope to divide us, to depict the Democratic leadership as uncooperative rather than the President who refuses to acknowledge his mistakes, pays no attention to the continuously growing opposition to his policies, and refuses to consider any substantive course corrections.

Please, liberals, don't be seduced by the dulcet tones of right-wing propaganda shills like Cal! Please, don't follow saruman into Orthanc!