Democrats in High Dudgeon

For John, BLUF:  Weren't the Democrats the ones calling for civility?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Writing to us from San Jose, Journalist Ed Driscoll, at Pajamas Media, talks to us about the Democrats, "Oh, That Punitive Liberalism".  Just as an aside, those are Progressives, not Liberals, but saying that makes me feel like I am trying to stick my finger in the dyke when there are major breaches to my left and right.

The best part is when he quotes Mr William A. Jacobson, who writes at his Legal Insurrection blog:

The mainstream left media also has become unhinged, like Andrew Sullivan’s rant that the Elephant must be taken down for good:

This time, the elephant must go down. And if possible, it must be so wounded it does not get up for a long time to come.

And then Mr Driscoll says:

Huh — I guess Andrew’s officially done calling himself a conservative.  Took a few years, but I’m glad we finally cleared that up.  And it’s doubly ironic to watch a British-born pundit who no doubt thinks of himself as the second coming of George Orwell employ shooting an elephant as a metaphor.

Here are some of the quotes from Mr Jacobson, via Mr Driscoll:

1. “Unhinged” Arsonists (Wasserman-Schultz)
2. Insane People Who “Have Lost their Minds” (Harry Reid)
3. “People with a Bomb Strapped to their Chest” (aka Terrorists)(Dan Pfeiffer)
4. Blatant Extortionists (Jay Carney)
5. “Legislative Arsonists” (Nancy Pelosi)

Well, the quotes are probably Democrats in Pseudo High Dudgeon.

As for Senator Reid, he has always been a bit edgy, at least from the security of the Well of the Senate, for instance accusing folks of cheating on their income taxes.

Lets face it, the Republicans associated with the Tea Parties are acting like a bunch of Bolsheviks in the Summer of 1917 and the Democrats are afraid they will be swept aside like Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky and the Provisional Government.

From one of my textbooks from this semester's class, Modern Revolutions:

It may well be that the Bolsheviks' greatest strength in 1917 was not strict party organization and discipline (which scarcely existed at this time) but rather the party's stance of intransigent radicalism on the extreme left of the political spectrum.
. . .
Among the socialist parties, only the Bolsheviks had overcome Marxist scruples, caught the mood of the crowd, and declared their willingness to seize power in the name of the proletarian revolution.♠  ♥ 

Ironic, isn't it.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  My computer dictionary says "workers or working-class people, regarded collectively," derived from the word for "the lowest class of citizens in ancient Rome."
♥  Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, p 42.