Playing Up the Hate

A candidate for District Attorney in Manhattan has decided that the best way to separate himself from the rest of the candidates is to pursue a gun control agenda, with an outrageous campaign.

The type of guys he hopes to keep guns from? Dick Cheney.

This is just insanity, but Richard Aborn, who hopes to replace retiring Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, thinks that this is a legitimate target and will score points with the liberals in Manhattan.

Under the headline "One candidate for district attorney has spent 30 years taking guns out of the hands of criminals," there's a large color photo of Cheney with his hands on a rifle.

"If someone happens to believe that Dick Cheney is some kind of war criminal and they like the fact that Richard Aborn is exposing Cheney for the barriers he placed in the way of keeping New Yorkers safe, then that's a happy coincidence," said Alex Navarro-McKay, an Aborn spokesman.

Cheney is a "visceral symbol of everything that progressive Democrats, Richard Aborn's base, oppose," Navarro-McKay explained.

The mailer also features a photograph of Aborn shaking hands with former President Bill Clinton and quotes the ex-president praising him, even though Clinton hasn't endorsed him.

When Democrats like to talk about how they're not playing up the hate, just remember that they're the ones who demonized and threatened President Bush and Vice President Cheney for eight straight years.

Can you just feel the love with the claims that Cheney was a war criminal?

The same kind of hatred and derangement from the right against President Obama is also corrosive to politics. One can hate the policies and practices without hating the person. All too often, the two get conflated.