John L. Perry
Thursday, July 8, 2004

One clutch of Democrats bristles at the press for noting that those two are the No. 1 (John Kerry) and No. 4 (John Edwards) most-liberal senators on Capitol Hill.

“Stop playing the label game,” they admonish, and then turn right around and insist upon employing the “mainstream” label.

America Is Basically Conservative

Another cluster of Democrats says, “Absolutely, this ticket is liberal. And that’s how we’ll win back the White House.”

Never mind that every opinion poll taken – if you still believe that opinion polls of several hundred or even a thousand hand-picked anonymous voters are valid measures of how all Americans are thinking – has this country tabbed as more conservative than liberal. Poll or no poll, that happens to be accurate.

The truth is that both factions of Democrats are dead wrong.

This year’s Democratic slate for president and vice president, like the clique that has seized control of the Democratic Party nationally, is not liberal. It is not mainstream. It is flat-out, unabashed radical-left.

Hoax of Liberalism

Republican as well as Democratic strategists who persist in debating whether the ticket is too liberal or not liberal enough are not only missing the point; they are helping perpetuate a hoax on the American electorate.

Kerry and Edwards are anything but parlor pinks or Cadillac liberals. They long ago stalked across the line between legitimate liberals, who are within the American mainstream, into the swamps of the cynical, ruthless, anti-American radical left.

Their hair has nothing to do with it. Their combined smile-and-a-half has nothing to do with it. Their latest flip, their latest flop has nothing to do with it.

What They Really Are

What they actually stand for is what they actually are. Judge them by the radical-left votes they have cast, the flips they have flopped, the neo-Marxist government programs they have propounded, the slanders they have uttered against patriotic Americans. Those are what really matter.

To catch a true picture of what’s going, observe the role being played out by the radical-left propagandists who populate much of the American mass media.

These birds have already exposed themselves as being far to the left of the mainstream, far to the left of legitimate liberals, far to the left of what the Democratic Party once stood for.

The New Reactionaries

They have moved so far to the left they have become America’s new reactionaries, intent upon turning back the clock to the bad, old days.

Now that they have helped achieve their ticket, they are scurrying around, dressing those two radicals wolves in “liberal” sheep’s clothing. It is a blatant attempt to peddle them to American voters as something they are not – “liberals.”

Not if you accept the dictionary definition of liberals: those who are “favorable to progress or reform … in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties … free from prejudice or bigotry … .”

Who the Bigots Are

It is radical leftists who are pitting race against race, class against class. They are the ones who find abhorrent the rule of law as set forth in the Constitution and demand radical-leftist judges willing to usurp the legislative function reserved to Congress and the people.

The radical-left press doesn’t dare portray Kerry and Edwards for what those two actually are – namely, the same sly brand of radicals so many in the press are. They are a devious lot, crafty enough to know that Kerry and Edwards, if portrayed for the radicals they truly are, will not go down the American gullet in 2004.

And those same news-media manipulators lack the character to state their own true colors and those of their Trojan-horse ticket.

Aiding and Abetting the Enemy

So, when conservatives holler “liberal!” at Kerry and Edwards, they are only playing the far-left’s game of deception.

Assigning labels for the purpose of distracting public attention from issues and evoking emotional responses works only up to a point in American politics.

What works better in today’s society of rather sophisticated voters is to deal with issues, and candidates, on their merits.

So, is calling John Kerry and John Edwards radicals label-slinging?

Not when it helps to focus public attention on what the Democratic ticket really is – and what an authentic danger it represents to America, which, believe it or not, is still mostly mainstream America.

John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for NewsMax.com.

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