Is it just me, or are most thinking that the "he's a liberal" doesn't

[AlinPA]

have any effect any more? That phrase is worn out completely. I think it may work in the bowels of the RW, but most people are turned off by it now.

[Dem Agog]

1. Sounded to me like...

Most of the media are saying it's a sign of desperation and the label means nothing anymore.

Seriously, when the "goddamned lib'rul" is for balancing the budget, better security and more responsible government... well okay then call me a liberal!

[WLKjr]

2. Kerry will show them Liberal

when he is liberal enough not to flat out kick *'s ass back to texas, and hand him a tissue when he starts to cry after Nov. 2nd

[LisaLynne]

3. I think you might be right.

I think the term is well on it's way to being reclaimed. I remember a couple of years ago, a Fundamentalist Republican friend of mine (yeah, I have one), jokingly called me a liberal, as though it was some sort of an insult. My honest reaction was that I was proud to be thought of as one and so I just blinked and replied with a big grin, "Yeah, I am! I'm a BIG, HUGE liberal." She didn't know what to say, but I can tell you that I really think it changed the word for her. Suddenly, she realized it's not insulting to liberals to call them liberal.

[skygazer]

4. It's not just you

The GOP has turned labels on their heads. "Compassionate conservative" for crying out loud! I laughed until I had tears in my eyes when Bush lectured Kerry on fiscal responsibility! I mean, really!

Bush is so far to the right of center that he's practically on the left. Kerry, on the other hand, is taking a very centrist position and people know that. When he talks about increasing troop strength, not raising taxes and balancing the budget, he sure doesn't sound like the traditional definition of a tax and spend liberal.

[SaveElmer]

5. The Boy Who Cried Wolf

They use it so often, and on people who are patently not liberal that it has lost its resonance.

[ladyrae416]

8. "What's wrong with being Liberal?"

(My first post - hello everybody!}






What's Wrong With Being Liberal?
President's Use Of L-Word Signals Desperation

POSTED: 3:09 pm CDT October 13, 2004 - Helen Thomas


There he goes again.

President George W. Bush, having run out of attack slogans, has gone back to the old Republican standby of accusing his opponent, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., of being a liberal.

What's wrong with that?

It's ironic that the Bush 43 is accusing Kerry of being a "tax-and-spend liberal." This is the same president whose legacy will include a huge budget deficit that will be with us long after he has left office.

The attempted demonization of the word "liberal" began with Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign in 1980 and was picked up by George H.W. Bush in the 1988 presidential campaign against then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.

Various dictionaries describe liberals as open minded, generous, progressive, leaning toward individual freedom, broadminded and ahead of the times.

Those interpretations of the word "liberal" seem to add up to a compassionate person. This president who calls himself a "compassionate conservative" surely cannot object to the label.

Unfortunately, the American people have yet to see the "compassionate" part of Bush equation. When a president wipes out overtime for millions of workers, restricts enforcement of health and safety regulations for workers, limits the union bargaining rights of government workers in Homeland Security and freezes their salaries, blocks the government from negotiating less expensive drugs from drug companies under Medicare, and gives huge tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers, can you really call him "compassionate"?

Maybe, for the rich.

Born into wealth and privilege, living the good life until he settled down at the age of 40, there was no time for Bush to develop a social conscience. So it's understandable how he would not show much compassion for the poor, the jobless and minorities.

He has chipped away at government social programs, putting them in competition with private religious charities for funding. Through vouchers, he is promoting private schools over public schools.

And he is seeking to weaken Social Security by privatizing a portion of the program.

Bush also has attacked Kerry for choosing a trial lawyer, Sen. John Edwards, as his running mate. Edwards has amassed a fortune through his success in winning malpractice verdicts for clients injured through the negligence of others.

Liberal presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 20th century played a transforming role to give disadvantaged citizens a break. They also moved against the plutocrats and the opponents of civil rights to work toward a more equal society.

None of their reforms came without a struggle or political costs.

Their contributions enhanced America's greatness as a caring democratic nation, concerned with the health and welfare of every citizen.

Bush's shrill derision of liberalism seems to be a sign of political desperation these days. What would the nation have done without the New Deal during the Great Depression? FDR also understood what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said: "Government should do for people what they cannot do for themselves."

Roosevelt's rallying cry at his 1933 inauguration was, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

It was a time when Americans were losing faith in the capitalistic system. Roosevelt saved the system with strong regulation and government support of financial institutions, as well as innovative programs to restore prosperity and health and welfare for hard-hit families.

Among Truman's "Fair Deal" contributions was wiping out the color line in the armed forces. The Kennedy administration lent its activist support and intervention to the civil rights movement in the South and signaled a war on poverty.

Johnson's "Great Society" legislation was the embodiment of liberalism. In his first two years in office, Johnson signed the first Medicare bill, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights act, federal funding to education at all levels from Head Start through college, child and maternal health measures, and public housing.

Liberals know all about compassion. What's more, they practice what they preach, which is more than the president can say.

(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address [e-mail]).

[AlinPA]

9. Thank you, great article. Welcome to DU.

[newyawker99]

15. Hi ladyrae416!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[TahitiNut]

6. Robert Sheer: "KERRY'S HARDLY A BLEEDING HEART"

KERRY'S HARDLY A BLEEDING HEART
Senator's voting record does not bear out Bush's use of the 'L-word'

October 12, 2004 -- Thank you, George W. Bush, for trying to assure me that John Kerry is a liberal. Wish it were so.

I like liberals. They gave us the five-day workweek; ended child labor; invented unemployment insurance, Social Security and Medicare; and led us, despite fierce opposition from "America First" pseudo-patriots on the political right, to victory over fascism in World War II. Liberals also ended racial segregation and gave women the vote.

But when Bush used the L-word in the second presidential debate, Kerry did not defend that proud progressive tradition. Nor did I expect him to. Kerry is one of those New Democrats who rejects the "liberal" label that I find so honorable. After all, Kerry, as he bragged in the debate, voted for the atrocious 1996 welfare reform bill, which has contributed to the 4 million additional people, mostly children, pushed below the poverty line during Bush's tenure.

<snip>

So, once again, as with Bill Clinton, I find myself supporting a Democrat with a domestic agenda to the right of Richard Nixon. Yes, the man Arnold Schwarzenegger eulogized at the GOP convention was in favor of a guaranteed annual income for all Americans -- something that can be made to sound even more socialist than liberal. Nixon's point man on such issues was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who as a Democratic senator from New York later blasted Clinton's anti-welfare bill as an immoral assault on the poor.

<snip>

OK, Kerry may not be a daring liberal, but he is an enlightened moderate who would at least safeguard the gains made since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. By contrast, the Bush administration seems determined to return us to the 19th century, when corporate robber barons owned the White House and employed crude "gunboat diplomacy" to serve their greed.

http://www.robertscheer.com/

[Beetwasher]

7. Think Of It From A Marketing Perspective

Why do advertisers change their ad campaigns over time? Because people get bored and move on because the older they are and the less effective they are and the less of an impact they have.

They've been using the same marketing campaign for over 20 years now. It's beyond done. It's empty and pathetic, especially when being hawked by someone who's not even fit to sell used shoes. Bush is the sleaziest salesman possibly ever and has NO credibility left to speak of.

[MallRat]

10. It's just so "1988."

They need to come up with fresh epithets to be effective. "Flip-flop" and "liberal" are pretty much dead and buried now.

[Kid_A]

11. I'm very encouraged by the fact that Bush has had to resort to that.

Using the word "liberal" as a negative is only meant to rally his base. We're less than a month from the election, and Bush is still having to drum up support from the liberal-hating, M16-owning, bunker-living wackos. This is the kind of rhetoric that I expect to hear from a Bush stump speech, not in a debate. I see this as a sign of desperation in the Bush campaign. They're tied with Kerry, and that TERRIFIES them.

[meow2u3]

12. GOP definition of liberal

Anyone to the left of the extreme right.

[info being]

13. I think you're right. If true, what a astonishing turn of events.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

14. What they don't understand is

there are many of us who are also liberal! :) Therefore though they intend to insult, all they really do is unify! I am a liberal, Thomas Jefferson was a liberal (the only time, by the way, that Thomas Jefferson and I will ever be in the same sentence) and when you read the dictionary definition of liberal it's certainly not something to be ashamed of!
Let them toss that word around all they like........

A big DU welcome to LadyRae :) :) :) :toast: