…what better way to oppose him than to make fun of his illness and the way he looks to try and score a political point?
Let The Moderate Voice be quite unmoderate for a moment here:
People on the far left AND right don’t realize how reprehensible personal attacks like this totally destroy the credibility of anything they have to say in the future.
My reaction? I read both sides. And when I read the article on the American Family Association’s website linked above, the group totally loses me.
And, really, just think about it: what better way to serve American families than by adults showing kids how cool it is to make fun of another person’s physical appearance due to their illness? My parents clearly failed me on that one…
My heart goes out to Senator Specter due to his illness and when I read this I think perhaps I need to pay special attention to Senator Specter and what he has to say in the future. For two reasons:
- He is ill and knows he is unlikely to be here in 10 more years. He’s someone who isn’t as motivated as some groups by future political ambitions.
- This group feels threatened enough by him that they resort to putting on their website an attack that is akin to schoolyard bullying.
People on the right who talk about Michael Moore discrediting the left should think about the impact this kind of bilge has and distance themselves — and send that group emails. The enemy of your enemy isn’t always your friend; sometimes he can be YOUR enemy.
In my case, I will most certainly give Senator Specter’s words more weight, given the character now documented of some of his opponents.
PS: If someone wants to ask me the now cliched question “How can you call yourself a moderate” due to this post, you know what? On this kind of attack I’m not a moderate. It doesn’t belong in American politics and completely discredits that group among even marginally thoughtful people (and many of my readers have certainly let me know they feel I fit into that group).
UPDATE: A reader asked me about if I would remain silent on Howard Dean making fun of Rush Limbaughs’ drug problem. Actually, I thought that was also a low blow. All of this kind of crap where people go after people PERSONALLY because someone has IDEAS they don’t like — and this includes bloggers who name call other bloggers — is an indication of how American society is deterioriating in the area of political discussion.
Howard Dean wasn’t right to make fun of Rush’s drug problem. But a group that supposedly is out to bolster family values making fun of the haggard appearance of a man who is probably not going to be on this earth for much longer is several notches BELOW Dean’s comments. Rush does NOT have a terminal illness — and his physical appearance has not been decimated by his drug use.
PS: I’m not going to get into a big, monster discussion in comments now about Dean and Rush. That is NOT THE ISSUE of my post.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.