October 24, 2006

Fascist and Left wing Lunacy trumps ‘free speech’ with ‘free hate in New London U.S. Senate debates

by Jerry Gordon

Open Marketplace of ideas? Civil Discourse? Not last night in New London.

Last night’s U.S. Senate debate in New London, Connecticut featured Senator Joe Lieberman running as an Independent, Ned Lamont as the wealthy neophyte Democratic contender and Alan Schlesinger former state legislator and former Derby Mayor as Republican candidate. Schlesinger has become popular in this three debate series for his snappy one-liner Jay Leno-like lines during the two prior debates. Last night’s debate was purportedly the third and ‘last one.’

Compare and contrast the two headlines and stories from the ‘grey lady’ AKA the New York Times buried on page B-6 in the Metro Section versus the bleating headline in today’s New London Day. The Times headline was ;‘In Final Debate, Lieberman Deflects His Rivals attacks,’ while the Day version bleated: “ ‘Hecklers Disrupt U.S. Senate Debate Candidates interrupted twice during NL faceoff. ‘

The Times report was decorous and subdued, nary the merest mention of what the Day reported.

Instead what a lot of us saw via television here in Connecticut were the crazed antics and agitprop of the Larouche Youth movement hecklers disrupting Senator Lieberman on stage not once, but twice at the Garde Arts Center and singing a ditty to a marching beat not unlike the Horst Wessel song of the beer hall Nazis in pre- Hitler Germany: “The Fat-Ass Nazi Song.” Lyndon Larouche, is the homegrown Fascist nutcase and former Socialist, antisemite and perennial candidate for President. Unfortunately, Larouche and I have something in common-we both grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts.

And all this after Senator Lieberman was roundly booed and hissed by a noisy pro Lamont claque in the audience when he mockingly chastised Democratic candidate Lamont about his negative campaign ads in response to a New London Day editorial writer and panelist question about truth in campaign advertising drawn from an earlier Fifth District fractious Congressional candidates debate in Waterbury, Connecticut

The irony was that Lieberman was, as one voter who I delivered lawn signs here in Fairfield, Connecticut told me, a key factor in saving the Groton U.S. Navy sub base by going to President Bush and asking that it not be closed for the benefit of 31,000 employees and national security. Apparently those sub base workers were denied their opportunity to come out in support of Senator Lieberman last night because federal rules preclude them from doing so. Instead we have the agit-prop of the Lamont anti-war crowd composed of another group of extremists and the heckling of the loony Larouche fascist apparatchiks!!

Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger to his credit stepped off his debate stool and demanded that the hecklers stop interfering with Senator Lieberman’s presentation. George Stephanopoulos appeared rattled and not in control of the situation as debate moderator. My guess is that he wished he was back in the safety of an ABC TV set back in New York or Washington, DC. The organizers of The Day, the Connecticut League of Women Voters and ABC affiliate WTNH-TV-8 must be dismayed by what occurred last night in New London. But then, they shoud have been prepared, shoudn’t they, given this rancorous campaign.

This was the latest excess in a campaign that has been transformed by radicals from the single issue anti-war movement seizing the Democratic party nomination process and propelled by millions of dollars of both personal and campaign contributions flooding my mail box and that of millions of other registered voters here in Connecticut with ‘huge’ postcards containing negative campaign ads.

The eruptions last night at the Garde Arts Center in New London didn’t redound to the benefits of Lamont seeking to stem his slide in recent polls numbers. If anything, Senator Lieberman may have gotten a sympathy vote boost from the crazed antics and theatrics.

Instead it left viewers with the distinct impression that televised public debates were in danger of being seized by the extremists and mobs just as the jack booted S.A. storm troopers and bully boys did in the waning days of the Weimar republic in the late 20’s and 1930 Campaigns pre-figuring Hitler’s rise to power in Nazi Germany.

But for those of us who have witnessed the deterioration of civil discourse on college campuses over this past decade fueled by the same manipulation and derogation of ‘free speech’, this was the latest example of something sinister happening in American society and politics; the death of electoral process and its seizure of by radical minority elements.

I got this response from Rabbi Jon Haddon-a remarkable member of the reform clergy with exceptional moral clarity who is spiritual leader of Temple Shearith Israel in Ridgefield, Connecticut:

‘I saw just a smattering of this insanity on the news this morning, and my heart broke…not just for Joe Lieberman, who deserves so much better…but for America that has allowed “free speech” to deteriorate into “free hatred.”

Should there be a fourth public debate in the waning days of this fractious Connecticut U.S. Senate campaign?

Not on this watch, I’m afraid.

Now it’s time for the competitors and in my case the Lieberman forces to get voters to the poll on November 7th to rout these left and right wing nasties and return this principled man to his seat in the U.S. Senate.

But first we need to tell voters where to find Joe on the ballot so that his re-election can be accomplished.

The only sweet thought that many of us involved in the campaign harbor is that if the U.S. Senate is split on the morning after, November 8th, the Senator could decide the fate of which party controls the majority.

Stay tuned for more “loony tunes” here in the nutmeg state.