You go out and fight the world,
Beat up boys and beat up girls.
And nothing's gonna change your ways,
You look at us, but we just say:
We're fun, you're not,
We play, we fight,
You're off, we're not,
That chip is all you got!

Interesting thoughts from Paul Rogat Loeb on the politics of bullying:

A former Air Force colonel I know described the administration’s attitude toward dissent as “shut up and color,” as if we were unruly eight-year-olds. Whatever we may think of Bush’s particular policies, the most dangerous thing he’s done is to promote a culture that equates questioning with treason. This threatens the very dialogue that’s at the core of our republic.

Think of the eve of the Iraq war, and the contempt heaped on those generals who dared to suggest that the war might take far more troops and money than the administration was suggesting. Think of the attacks on the reputations and motives of longtime Republicans who’ve recently dared to question, like national security advisor Richard Clarke, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, weapons inspector Scott Ritter, and Bush’s own former Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill. Think of the Republican TV ads, the 2000 Georgia Senate race—which paired Democratic Sen. Max Cleland with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein—asserting that because Cleland opposed President Bush’s Homeland Security bill, he lacked “the courage to lead.”

There's been a lot of discussion especially on blogs but some in the press about the Bush Campaign/Administration's systematic use of bullying and intimidation in their various PR schemes. The author's main idea that this type of thing is threatening to our republic may sound a bit alarmist on it's face but I believe he has a very valid point.

As people are labeled "unpatriotic" or "treasonous" when they offer a dissenting political view it teaches society that it's wrong to speak out (In all fairness, Kerry's wife has referred to Dick Cheney as "unpatriotic" for ducking Vietnam....but that wasn't an attempt to label Cheney for his political views). It's a wearing of the scarlet letter for simply daring to have political disagreements and voicing them. We're becoming what we said we hated...like China or the Soviet Union.

Our founders established the First Amendment for the expressed purpose of making certain political dissent was not only protected, but encouraged. Is there such a fundamental lack of understanding of this issue by the American electorate that they would continue to reward such heinous behavior? Or are so many just lazy or busy so that they don't keep track enough to notice what's going on?

Such labeling erodes the basic civil right of political free speech. As long as this labeling continues to be rewarded with political points, it won't end. Journalists seem to no longer exist and the media appears to be a group of sycophants more interested in preening and power than offering facts. When it's perfectly acceptable to treat people like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity and Matt Drudge as serious arbiters of political ideas, it's time to stop dead in our tracks and take stock of where we are.