A Stained Mind

This morning I had a :45 minute wait between dropping my daughter off, and the beginning of an 8th grade basketball game. During a stop at a convenience store, I picked up The New York Post. At the counter, I took part in a conversation with three other people about the up-coming primary. All four of us were democrats, which I took as a good sign considering that we are in a very conservative, republican upstate county.

I would have bought the NY Times had the store carried it, and when I opened the Post I was reminded why I rarely read it. There was an editorial titled "Obama: No JFK," by a snake named Jonah Goldberg. He became a right-wing darling when his mother helped fuel the fire of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. (she is the snake who convinced Linda Tripp to record her conversations with Monica).

Goldberg is the editor-at-large of the National Review online. He recently published a book titled "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning." The book reportedly had a "working title" than compared Senator Hillary Clinton to Mussolini. He is a peddler of lies and hatred, and the editorial in today’s paper ranks with the most obscene things I’ve read.

Goldberg is not satisfied to discuss the issues involved in the democratic primary – he would have nothing of value to add – and so spews hatred towards the democratic party at large. He attacks the journalists who have commented favorably on Obama; insults Ted Kennedy and Ted Sorensen; and condemns Barack Obama for the sin of being more liberal than Hillary Clinton.

That alone would merely reinforce the image of Jonah as a neoconservative lap dog – a yappy little poodle barking at the image of a lion on a television screen. But he is far worse than that: Jonah lies about the nature of the Kennedy administration, attempting to reinvent JFK as a conservative hawk, while completely ignoring the reality of President Kennedy’s message of hope. Should anyone question where Kennedy stood on issues, they should read the transcript of the address he delivered at American University in June of 1963 (and compare it to Senator Obama’s message).

Jonah appeals to the darker side of human nature when he focuses attention on Lee Harvey Oswald, who he incorrectly claims was a Marxist representative of the American left. Why would anyone who is focusing on the campaign of Barack Obama today include information on LHO in their editorial? He is a snake. He is more of a hate-monger than Louis Farrakhan, though he lacks Farrakhan’s communication skills.

But the message is the same.

No matter if a citizen of this country is a democrat, and supports either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton; or if they are a republican, stuck with the choice between John McCain or Willard Romney; or is an independent or a member of another party, they should reject the poison that snakes like Jonah Goldberg are attempting to inject into the election. And the media should not promote the hate speech with its not-so-subtle calls to the diseased aspects of our society.