Run Away! Run Away!

Now it’s just getting ridiculous.

The run to the center begins, with people like Rick Perlstein enabling the right wing in their demonization of leftists and “the left” by stepping up their campaign to get SIRIUS to change the name of the liberal talk channel on their satellite radio network from “SIRIUS Left” because the conservative channel is called “SIRIUS Patriot”.

So now — assuming anyone on the right is paying attention — they’ll be able to claim that Democrats and liberals are running away from the idea of being associated with the left. Because we all know that the left is a bad thing.

As a marketing plan, it might not have been a bad idea to work to get them to change the name. Although, if I was given the choice of listening to channels I didn’t know anything about labeled “Patriot” and “Liberty”, I’d probably leave the radio off, thinking that the former was a bunch of right-wing talkers who find that kind of ostentation necessary the way they need to drive Hummers to show they’re big men, and that the latter was a 24-hour loop of George W. Bush speeches about “our liberties”.

Stop being so scared people. People who disagree with you are going to call you leftists and communists and socialists and un-American. Hell, they’re starting to call George W. Bush a liberal.If it isn’t true, refute it or ignore it. If it is true, you can say: “Yes, I’m a leftist. Let me tell you about the wonders of socialized medicine.”