Beacon Street Journal

The bizarre circumstances surrounding the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District has been used as evidence by many media pundits to demonstrate that a “civil war” is brewing in the Republican Party.

Based solely on the thin reed of this singular and unusual event, many liberal Democrats have attempted to bootstrap an argument that concludes that the Dede Scozzafava affair, and the concomitant conservative uprising against her candidacy, demonstrates the Republican Party has been taken over by right wing fanatics who seek to impose a litmus test on all future candidates.  MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, characterized those who thought the views of the Republican nominee should not conform so closely to unabashed liberals of the Democratic Party  as “wing nuts.” During his Hardball broadcasts for the previous week, Matthews persistently referred to Scozzafava as a “moderate” Republican; many other cable TV hosts followed suit.

If Dede Scozzafava is an exemplar of a “moderate” Republican, the term “moderate” no longer has any meaning in our political lexicon. Scozzafava can be characterized as a “liberal Republican” or as a RINO, but when assessed against the spectrum of principles that establish the Republican Party as a conservative party, Scozzafava was clearly no middle of the road Republican.

Let’s review Scozzafava’s credentials as a “moderate.” She is for partial birth abortions. She supports union card check, which would abolish secret balloting. She supports same-sex marriage. She supported the stimulus bill, a fiscally reckless, and extravagant piece of legislation (a view incidentally shared by a large swath of the electorate) for which not one Republican in the House voted.

To add insult to injury to the party which poured nearly $1 million on her doomed campaign, after withdrawing from the race, she then promptly endorsed the Democrat. These are the views and actions of a moderate Republican? A question for Chris Matthews: if Scozzafava is a moderate, what would a “liberal” Republican look like?

Yet somehow we are told that this incident is indicative of a civil war brewing in the Republican Party, prompted by far right extremists, who by their opposition to a liberal on the ticket are engaging in a Stalinist purge (to use Frank Rich’s terminology) of moderates.

Would it be asking too much of these same pundits to apply consistently the label of “extremist” to their preferred political party? When neo-Marxist crackpot and Green Jobs Czar Van Jones was exposed as a fringe left winger, who believed that whites were deliberately steering pollution to communities of color, I don’t recall many pundits in the media characterizing his views as “extremist” nor was this bizarre appointment used to illustrate the far-left ideology of the president.

Yet, which of the two parties is more likely to impose a “litmus test?” When lifelong liberal Joe Lieberman ran for reelection in Connecticut, he was banished from his party because of his unabashed belief that securing victory in Iraq was the only viable course of action for the United States. For his heresy against established Democratic Party orthodoxy, Lieberman was forced to run as an Independent and subsequently was reelected. Former Pennsylvania Governor, Bob Casey, was refused a speaking slot at the Democratic Party’s 1992 convention because of his staunch pro-life views. Litmus test, anyone?

It is also interesting to note that one of the most vocal proponents for Ned Lamont, Lieberman’s Democratic opponent in that race, was none other than far-left blogger Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos — the same Markos Moulitsas who characterized “Republican moderate” Dede Scozzafava as the most liberal of all the candidates (including the Democratic nominee) in New York’s Congressional race. Is there not a trace of incongruity here?