Lies of the Left -- The Republican Smear Machine

One thing about Democrats -- the world may change around them, but they remain true to the narratives they constructed nearly half a century ago. One of those narratives, first deployed in 1968, was an explanation for why they frequently lose elections. They simply charge that evil Republicans smeared them and lied to the public both about the candidates and their policies. This despite the fact that in the practice of smearing the opposition, Republicans are far more sinned against than sinners.

A second narrative, also invoked to explain electoral defeat, is the assertion that most white Americans are racists and that Republicans exploit this fact, appealing to the worst demons of human nature.

Time and again these stories have been told, about Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and both Bushes. And they have been given credence by a left-of-center press corps. They have become, for those who view life from the left, conventional wisdom. Now the Obamination is using them against John McCain. But, this time some liberals are rejecting the narrative. James Kirchick of the New Republic isn't buying it. He writes:

[T]he fears of Obama supporters that their candidate lies eternally vulnerable to GOP smears exists only in their fevered imaginations. The evidence of dirty Republican tricks has been utterly absent this campaign season. And if anyone has tried to smear Barack Obama in the way that Thomas, Wolfe and other Democratic partisans allege, it was not the Republican National Committee, but rather Hillary Rodham Clinton and her surrogates....

The belief that “the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968” is a comforting salve for Democrats. After all, it’s much easier for them to demonize conservatives than consider that the reason for their electoral defeats may lie with liberal ideas.

Read it here.

One has to admire Kirchick for his honesty -- too bad the "candidate of change" won't himself abandon the tired old lies of the left.