Yesterday Steven Hayward at the Ashbrook Center Blog posted an article about the recent comments by some news opinion people expressing a desire to go back to the 1980’s when politics was much more ‘civil.’
Chris Matthews, not known to be a bastion of civility, posted an article in the Washington Post “looking back with nostalgia on the wonderful comity between Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan.” It seems as if Mr. Matthews managed to leave a few things out of his history lesson. The article at Ashbrook Center Blog cites this quote from Tip O’Neill about Ronald Reagan:
“The evil is in the White House at the present time. And that evil is a man who has no care and no concern for the working class of America and the future generations of America, and who likes to ride a horse. He’s cold. He’s mean. He’s got ice water for blood.”
Maybe I’m a little oversensitive, but this doesn’t seem all that civil to me. The article reminds us:
“As Reagan’s 100th birthday approaches next month, don’t be taken in by all the liberals who now say what a wonderful guy he was or how much more civil things were then compared to that dreadful woman from the northern territories today. Funny how liberals always seem to discern the virtues of conservatives only after they’re dead and gone.”
At the risk of thoroughly undermining the new political correctness trying to take over our polical dialogue, for people on the left side of the political spectrum, the only good conservative is a dead conservative or a conservative out of office. Let’s not let those on the left rewrite the history of political debate in America.