Now, we’re the ‘party of death’

National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru is about to publish the right-wing’s new favorite book. It’s called — I’m not kidding — “The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life.”

The pitch seems straightforward enough. According to the publisher, Ponnuru’s latest will be “the first book to expose the real agenda of the liberal Democrats,” which apparently is to kill people through abortion and euthanasia.

The right couldn’t be more excited about the book. Michelle Malkin has called it “the most important book of the year, if not the decade,” and said it will help defeat “the death cult of Planned Parenthood, Howard Dean, and the New York Times.” Rush Limbaugh said Ponnuru’s book “tells the story of how the Democrats became the party of abortion on demand and euthanasia, and lost the support of most Americans in the process.” William F. Buckley, Jr. said the book “will be accepted almost immediately as the seminal statement on human life.”

To paraphrase Scott McClellan, I welcome the debate. Indeed, let’s talk about which party is “the party of death.” Let’s have a serious discussion with the right over issues such as war, stem-cell research, pre-natal care, and life-saving vaccines that they oppose for political reasons.

It’s important to label one side of the political divide the “the party of death”? That’s where our political discourse needs to be? Fine, let’s have the debate.

If they call the Dems the party of death, then
Repubs are the party of Doom.
The grim reaper vs. the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

What ever happened to donkeys and elephants?

  • You missed the Death Penalty. That is at least the State killing people (as is war). The Democrats are for allowing people to make decisions for themselves.

    Which we know is not allowed by the Theocratic Reactionary Right.

  • If one party has got to be the Party of Death, it’s certainly the Republicans

    Let’s take a look at what they’ve done and caused over the past six years.

  • Wasn’t this guy on Bill Maher last weekend? I don’t remember him taking much of a stand to big bad Gloria Steinem.

  • Party of death is a bit misleading, I don’t think either party is the Party of Death, any more than either party can lay claim to Party of Life (narrowly defined as anti-abortion, the Rs have it, but we are not so narrow-minded). With war and the death penalty, the Republican Right are “the party of death to people we disagree with or have labeled as ‘evil-doers’ ” where as Democrats and left-leaning folks are “the party of death if the individual explicitly asks for it or if the debate is still out on when ‘life’ technically ‘begins’ “.

  • Republicans are the Party of Death. It’s the “let’s sit on our asses while Katrina moves towards the Gulf Coast” party.

  • So, are they trying to start a civil war, or what? This kind of eliminationist rehtoric only serves to demonize and dehumanize those who disagree with you, which makes it much easier to contemplate just killing them all because that would make things so much easier.

  • So, are they trying to start a civil war, or what? This kind of eliminationist rehtoric only serves to demonize and dehumanize those who disagree with you, which makes it much easier to contemplate just killing them all because that would make things so much easier.

    That’s the logical conclusion of the Coulter/Limbaugh approach to public debate. Dehumanize your opponents, and you open the door to dark doings on a historical scale.

    It would be nice to see some of the saner Republicans disavow this approach. Not holding my breath, though.

  • I can only hope that the leaders of the GOP and the Religious Right have to one day make the decision to “Live” or to begin hospice.

    It sickens me that once again they are trying to equate Democrats with terrorists…they both have a “love of death”…

    Methinks the GOP is fighting their war on too many fronts, against too many imaginary enemies.

  • Maybe, if the Democrats got out of the cower and
    whimper mode, this vicious onslaught by the rabid
    Republicans would come to an end. I think they
    sense total victory. Subjugation of the Democrats
    as a permanent, pathetic minority party to be kicked
    around at their pleasure.

    All it takes to end this horror is one louzy Congressional
    victory in 2006. But will the Dems stand up and show
    the American people where this country ought to
    be heading? HELL, NO!!

  • We shouldn’t call ANYBODY the “Party of Death”, because that only serves to drive the level of debate further into the muck. If the GOP’s policies have lead to massive deaths, well that’s bad, but that doesn’t mean that a high mortality rate was what they were trying to achive. If we’re going to fight this kind of bullshit, we need to resist the temptation to respond in kind. It is not enough to fight the darkness, you must stand apart from it as well.

  • Let’s talk about the Party of Crooks. I just did my very first blog entry at the TPM Cafe about Arianna Huffington’s involvement with the Parents in Charge Foundation, sponsored by major right wingers Ted Forstmann of Forstmann & Little and the Walton family. She was the executive director for $80k in 2002, the year the foundation made a “documentary”.

    Parents in Charge was founded and funded to the tune of $10 million in 2000, an election year by Ted Forstmann. The foundation supposedly was making “public service announcements” about the importance of parents being activists with regard to education. In 2001, the Waltons donated $10 million and that’s the end of the donations to Parents in Charge.

    All told, approx. $13.7 million went to advertising agencies and consultants in 2000 and 2001. In 2002 and 2003, $5.5 million went to the Children’s which Forstmann already supported. The foundation is defunct now for all intents and pruposes.

    The 990s filed with the IRS by Parents in Charge can be found at the Foundation Center’s , an invaluable public service.

  • The party of cruel lies and polarizing smears
    vs
    the party of timid silence and self-doubting fears.

    Sounds like an unfair fight, a bratty six year old picking on toddler.
    Time for playground 101. The Dems need to discover what we all learned in the sandbox when the big kid took our shovel.
    The Democrats need to learn how to deal with a bully.

  • This is one of the Conservatives’ strong suits. They aggressively label and repeat, then redefine the label as it suits them.

    Ironically, they seem to usurp labels that would more aptly apply to themselves and afix them to another group, such as labeling Democrats weak on National Security.

    Their ability to execute this type of campaign should be respected as much as it is loathed.

    Negative labeling is the root of bigotry and prejudice, and it’s divisive nature is what makes it effective and harmful.

    The world is grey, not black and white, but many people are simply more comfortable with the ‘with us or against us’ mentality because it’s easier.

  • It seems the strategy of watching the Republicans destroy themselves then coasting to an easy victory in November isn’t going to work after all.

    It’s well past time the Democrats stand up and throw some punches. If they haven’t noticed, the political arena has turned into a street fight not an urbane coctail party.

    Oh … and get rid of Joementum. He’ll turn on you the moment your guard is down.

  • Actually, Ross Taben, I disagree on two levels.

    First, if I can get in the ring with Oscar De La Hoya, and he has to fight by the rules of boxing, but I can kick him, hit him with the chair from the corner, and pull a knife on him, I will win even though I am an short, out-of-shape 40-something. When one side rejects rules and fights in an uncivilized manner, the person trying to fight “fair” will lose every time (see Afghanistan v. Russia, or, if we aren’t careful Iraqi resistance v. USA).

    The classic political example is Swiftboating. Kerry “stood part from” the darkness, and refused to respond in kind. Frankly, that is why the world is suffering Dumbya, Part Deux. We dont have the luxury of the high road; the world needs saving.

    Second, as I noted in response to teh topic of HPV vaccine in the past week, a significant segment of the Rethug party is, objectively, pro-death. You argue that a “high morality rate [isn’t] what they are trying to achieve,” but in blocking a known-effective cancer vaccine, mortality is precisely the intent: have sex, pay with your life. There simply is no more charitable way to read the intentional effort to save the lives of women dying of cervical cancer. Why can’t we just be honest – why do we have to sugar coat them? This is objective fact: Republican want to kill woman.
    Period.

    Damn they piss me off.

  • oops – need to use preview. the quoted section from Ross in the last para. should say “high morTality rate.” although they also believe they are seeking a high morality rate. i just happen to disagree with their definition.

  • Party of Death? How to respond? Personally, I think that this is SO over the top, that I think we should just start laughing at the Repubs. We take everything they say SOOO seriously. If we just started laughing at them, to show them that we think they are just plain silly, what could they do?

    Ridicule, by laughing at them, is better than trying to defend a silly, stupid accusation. To argue with them is just to validate their claim. Laugh at them. Laugh at their stupidity. Call them stupid. Just don’t take them seriously. If we don’t take them seriously, no one else will.

    They are so used to us putting up a defense, this tactic would completely take them off guard. Didn’t someone say that laughter is the best medicine? Dems – it is time to heal yourselves with a good dose of laughter.

  • The right-wingers made my day. I cracked up when I read this piece.

    I agree with you LynChi. This is so preposterous that we need to laugh in the righnutters’ faces.

    “Fine, let’s have the debate.” No please, let’s not. Let’s have a good laugh instead.

  • Can we call the Repubiclan Party the Legion of Doom? SPECTRE? Cobra Command? Decepticons? That’s about the level of intelligence the right’s argument has lowered to.

  • I wonder why the rightnutters are always foaming at the mouth at the Democrats.

    Did someone forget to tell them that the Administration, Congress, a good chunk of the judiciary, and half the Supreme Court are on their side, that they have all the power, and that the Democrats have none?

    Are they paranoid?

    Check out the following blogs from the right side of the Daou Report: “Cold Fury” and “All” Things Beautiful”. These guys are really in outer space.

  • It is not only in regard to sexual behavior but also in regard to knowledge on sex subjects that the attitude of Christians is dangerous to human welfare. Every person who has taken the trouble to study the question in an unbiased spirit knows that the artificial ignorance on sex subjects
    which orthodox Christians attempt to enforce upon the young is extremely dangerous to mental and physical health, and causes in those who pick up their knowledge by the way of “improper” talk, as most children do, an attitude that sex is in itself indecent and ridiculous. I do not think there
    can be any defense for the view that knowledge is ever undesirable. I should not put barriers in the way of the acquisition of knowledge by anybody at any age. But in the particular case of sex knowledge there are much weightier arguments in its favor than in the case of most other
    knowledge. A person is much less likely to act wisely when he is ignorant than when he is instructed, and it is ridiculous to give young people a sense of sin because they have a natural curiosity about an important matter.

    Almost every adult in a Christian community is more or less diseased nervously as a result of the taboo on sex knowledge when he or she was young. And the sense of sin which is thus artificially implanted is one of the causes of cruelty, timidity, and stupidity in later life. There is no rational ground of any sort or kind in keeping a child ignorant of anything that he may wish to know, whether on sex or on any other matter. And we shall never get a sane population until this fact is recognized in early education, which is impossible so long as the churches are able to control educational politics.

    —- Bertrand Russell
    “Has Religion Contributed Anything To
    Civilization?”

  • Party of Death sounds sorta right… After all, every time someone shoots someone else, the gun control fanatics are crawling all over each other hoping to be the first with a photo op… Clue-time campers… Anecdotal evidence does not equate to useful data.

    If they’re really after “safety,” they’d be far better served to work for laws delaying drivers’ licenses until age 18… Or requiring _extensive_ safety checks, bonds, etc, etc., for any home pool more than 6″ deep.

    It’s all about the fund raising.

  • Can we call the Repubiclan Party the Legion of Doom?-2Manchu

    How about the party of Greed and Neglect?

  • kali,
    Lex Luthor – Dick Cheney (No hair, sometimes-evil genius)

    Bizarro – George Bush (low intelligence, speech impediment, dangerously unpredictable)

    Scott McClellan – The Riddler

    Do I need to say more?

  • Anyone has a clue why the rightnutters are soiling their diapers at the slightest hint of criticism?

    These guys control EVERYTHING: the presidency, Congress, and the judiciary. One would think that they would be dancing in the streets. Instead, they go beserk when anyone questions their president and/or their so-called values.

    What is the matter with them?

    Seriously, I would like to get feedback on this issue. I am totally nonplussed.

  • 2Manchu-

    The Brain- Karl Rove
    The Monster-George Bush
    Dr. Frankenstein – Dick Cheney
    Bride of Frankenstein- Condi
    Party of the Living Dead- Republicans

    The crowd with pitchforks storming the castle- Popular Opinion

  • I suppose any Dems with cojones will have to come from the blogosphere and the grass roots. The Beltway Dems are too enmeshed in the system.

    The thing to do is throw “Party of Death” in their faces. “Let’s talk about Iraq and Katrina. Who’s the party of death?” Then watch ’em squirm.

    Meanwhile, we gotta get rid of the wimps.

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