This may sound strange, considering I have in the past boasted that I could kick the asses of both of the blogging Klonskies and have on many occasions complained of their reckless regard for the Truth in their posts, but the newest brand of McCarthyism making the rounds in attempt to smear both Mike Klonsky and Obama totally creeps me out.
Is this how far the right has sunk?
So the flap surrounds Klonsky, who temporarily had a blog on the Obama campaign site. The rub seems to be that – gasp – 30-years-ago he did the whole communist thing. Yawn…
For those of you who don’t follow Klonsky or his blog, he’s a college professor who is passionately involved in the small schools movement. We disagree on a lot of things and we lob shots at each other (he calls me names like Republicrat Twit and I sometimes point out that he is totally full of shit/factually bankrupt, etc.) But I do enjoy his blog and admire/appreciate how much of his life he gives to this stuff. (And I actually agree with him on a lot of things he writes, but I don’t usually go there because the Klonsky style involves twisting your words around until you no longer recognize them if you’re on his secret enemies list.)
But now the right-wingers want us to run away from him because he was hot for Trotsky 30-years-ago? That some past allegiances with some Bolshevik buddies makes him different than 95% of our nation’s college professors over the age of 50? Even stranger, we’re supposed to get all wigged out about Obama because Klonsky the blogger is a dangerous commie? I’m not buying it.
We’re talking about Klonsky, not Stalin. Yeah he’s a lefty, but so what? Don’t his ideas deserve an airing? This whole crusade is as crazy as calling Obama a socialist because of his tax plans and the redistribution of wealth. But that’s what government does. (The scary thing is that the McCain camp is pushing this stuff with a tottally straight face, which should scare the heck out of everyone.)
A vote for McCain/Palin is apparently a vote for extreme intolerance.
PS – Besides, who wasn’t a communist back then? (Even Checker Finn reportedly grew his own vegetables when he worked for Moynihan.)