Hindsight from The New Gun Week January 10, 1999
Name-Calling in the Capitol Schoolyard
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
Schoolyard name-calling is no new phenomenon. It was common before I went to grammar school, common during my early years, and is apparently still very common. I use the word "common" with an eye on the baser definition of the word.
Nonetheless, people who didn't like each other, or partisan groups or gangs of people, are apparently still well-versed in the junkyard techniques of calling selected individuals or groups of individuals by nasty names. Name-calling quite frequently and still is a prelude to more physical attacks and violent confrontations.
A related ploy used by one faction against another is tattletaling; finding some bit of gossip, whether true or not, which when conveyed to others would help to engender hostility by others against the subjects.
Still another stratagem designed to deflect attention from the ring-leaders was the selection of dupes who would be the principal broadcasters of the most outrageous lies, slanders, calumnies and gossips and claims against others.
In my day, parents and teachers would attempt to defuse the name-calling and repair injured feelings by reminding the kids in their charge that, "Sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you."
A corollary bit of wisdom was that "Nobody likes a tattletale."
But neither parents or teachers then nor now have been very successful in eliminating nasty name-calling and schoolyard conflicts. And apparently their lessons haven't stuck with generations of Americans as they grew older and entered careers as politicians, journalists and other so-called adult occupations.
Instead, those who grew up to become political consultants, candidates and elected officials have taken name-calling and tattletaling to a newer, I won't say higher, level of refinement by employing more skillful techniques probably taught in college political science and journalism courses.
At the core of the popular Potomac River brand of name-calling is the same thinking which motivates kids to call their "enemies" nasty names and attempt to label them as outside the mainstream of the attitudes of their contemporaries.
The Clinton Administration has been particular adept in finding and applying unflattering labels to its political opponents from the time of the 1992 presidential campaign until the present. If anything, the White House crew has been even more active in their area since the Starr Report was released and the House of Representatives moved inexorably closer to impeachment.
Indeed, some observers seem to believe that this name-calling and tattle-taling by the White House, whether expressed by Administration staffers or leaked to friendly journalists who would do the dirty work from a distance, actually contributed to the hardening of Republican determination to impeach Clinton. The White House has also been especially skillful in applying all of the dirty tricks learned in the schoolyard.
Clinton himself continues to act as though he never did anything wrong, suggesting that Starr and the House Judiciary Committee created the problem out of thin air.
Mrs. Clinton has continued to suggest that the whole inquiry into the wrongdoing of her husband is just a vast "right-wing conspiracy." (Note that using the terms "right-wing" or "liberal" today is the equivalent of using nasty national, racial, ethnic or religious slurs against someone else years ago.)
But the White House and its loyal Democratic gang has used sexual escapades by others in wholesale fashion against anyone who says or does anything which reflects on Clinton's misbehavior, ignoring the fact that in the President's case the issue isn't illicit sex, or even illicit sex in the White House, but his lying about it which is at issue.
The White House defense is that everybody lies about sex, and they have pointed to Thomas Jefferson as a prime example, as well as extramarital sexual affairs by other presidents and prominent people.
With the help of White House spear-bearers like Hustler's Larry Flynt who advertised a million-dollar payoff to anyone who would come forward and be interviewed about Capitol Hill sexcapades, the Democrats helped smear and bring down House Speaker nominee Bob Livingston (D-LA). Livingston announced his resignation from Congress.
But Livingston isn't the only target of the White House's wholesale use of the tactics once used so grossly by the late Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
Now there are accusations that Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), a leading proponent of impeachment and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, as well as Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, have ties to a "White Supremacist" organization. A Dec. 19 column by Colbert I. King in The Washington Post suggested that before the Senate does anything else (like consider impeachment) when it convenes, "its first order of business should be to review Majority Leader Trent Lott's fitness to serve as guiding light of the world's most deliberative body."
The case against Lott and Barr is that they spoke at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that King claimed has a "racialist" agenda. Lott and Barr have responded through their offices that their speaking engagements before the group involved no linkage or endorsement, or even knowledge of any agenda.
But the news stories are apparently resonating with minorities, judging from the person from Michigan who called in to C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" on Dec. 28 repeating the Democratic charges that Republicans want to turn back the clock on civil rights.
I didn't hear if someone called in to remark that now that the Clinton team's name-calling and calumny bowled over Livingston, they only have a little over 200 Republicans in the House and 55 in the Senate to get rid of before an impeachment vote.
Just how bad does name-calling in the Capitol Hill style get? Here are some samples from Greg Pierce's Dec. 17 "Inside Politics" column in The Washington Times.
Pierce quotes from a Wall Street Journal editorial which said that "Outside the solemnity of the Judiciary hearing room, liberal icons are speaking at the level of a rant."
The column quoted Actor Alec Baldwin as saying on Conan O'Brien's show: "If we were in other countries, we would all right now, all of us together, all of us together would go down to Washington and we would stone Henry Hyde to death!"
Apparently, Baldwin at least remembers that sticks and stones do cause injury. It's a good thing that someone who thinks like him was not one of the Founding Fathers. Baldwin and friends always seem to see a better form of government in another country, one that would allow the elite to stone anyone who disagrees with them.
The Washington Times column also cited attorney Alan Dershowitz as telling Geraldo Rivera: "A vote against impeachment is a vote against bigotry-it's a vote against fundamentalism-it's a vote against the radical right-it's a vote against the pro-life movement."
Pierce quotes the Wall Street Journal as editorializing that the Clinton gang is seemingly unable to recognize the seriousness of the events before them. "Faced with the loss of the remnants of their moral superiority, they have descended to mere screaming."
The Journal apparently remembers that Clinton ran for office on the promise of providing "the most ethical administration in history." Apparently, the Harvard/Hollywood sycophants believed him, except that they figured on the moral standards of Hollywood's professional liberals. Those are the people who accuse someone of being a "bigot" when they disagree with their current communitarian social agenda.
Actually, the Clinton crowd and their camp followers don't really want to discuss issues or evidence. He has actually convinced himself, it seems, that he did not have sex with Monica Lewinksi even if she had sex with him in the White House. He has also convinced himself that he never lied to the grand jury, during the Paula Jones trial discovery, or in answering Congress' questionnaire.
He has apparently also convinced himself that if he and his cronies use Fascist tactics and McCarthy's style of innuendo, that is consistent with Clinton's promise to have "the most ethical administration in American history."
Yet the Clinton Administration is the one that has coined the phrase and decried the practice of "the politics of personal destruction."
Maybe we were better off when presidents just installed indoor plumbing in the White House. That seems a better occupation than name-calling and character assassination. As Livingston found out, and as Barr and Lott are learning, name-calling on Capitol Hill can hurt you.
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.net
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