Keeping The Heated Rhetoric In A Cooler Perspective (UPDATED)

My blogging colleague Jason Tolbert really grasped for straws in his recent column when he tried to tie Arkansas Democrats to a former Democratic candidate no one remembers.  Let’s pick apart his weak attempt to paint all Democrats with the same brush.

The crux of his last post centers around someone named Bill Wisely.  I’m actively involved in Democratic politics and until I read Tolbert’s post, I never heard of the man.

In 2010, Bill Wisely was a candidate for exactly 17 days when he briefly sought the Democratic nomination for a open House seat during a special election in Garland County.  Wisely ultimately dropped out of the race before the actual election. Blue Arkansas Blog has a story from December 2010 on how this Wisely fella sounds like a bit of a knucklehead.

How this is relevant, or more to the point, irrelevant, is Wisley recently made an inappropriate comment on his Facebook page, and Tolbert seized on this “never was” candidate to make a specious argument on how all Democrats surely must think.

Tolbert apparently believes this pseudo-former candidate’s comments should be held up as proof that all Arkansas Democrats are playing in the gutter. To that I say, “C’mon, man, who cares what some guy no one remembers and whose name never even appeared on a ballot says or thinks?”

However, If we use Tolbert’s standard on the importance of former candidates’ comments, maybe we should hold comments made by Ralph Forbes, former Republican Lt. Governor candidate, and KKK leader, as proof of what all Republicans believe.  Of course, that wouldn’t be right, even if Forbes did lead the ballot in a three-way Republican primary.

Tolbert did fairly highlight an ill-advised comment by Democratic State Representative Garry Smith when Smith recently said, “The Republicans in Washington are anti-everything. They don’t like Jesus, I am pretty sure of that.”  Smith shouldn’t have said that, he knows it and Smith quickly apologized publicly for it.

This is unlike Republican State Representative Nate Bell who last year attempted to equate Democrats with Nazis by writing, “comparing Dems to Nazis is wayyyy to (sic) easy,”  As you recall, Republican Nate Bell didn’t have the decency to apologize for his irresponsible and disgusting rhetoric.  It seems that when Democrats mess up they do the right thing and apologize, while Republicans do not.

2012 is going to be an epic election year with a lot of heated rhetoric. Let’s keep some perspective and all agree to hold individuals accountable for their words and actions, not their political party affiliation.

UPDATE: Right after I posted this story about hot political rhetoric, Keith Emis, a Republican political consultant, posted the following tweet. While directly unrelated to my story, it is worth noting here:

@KeithEmis: Anyone else notice that gays have supplanted Blacks at the top of the minority grievance pyramid? politi.co/yyeQXC

That is some harsh language from someone Republicans hire to run their campaigns.

I guess “Blacks” (do y’all think he wanted to use a different word(s)?) shouldn’t have any grievances since their history in America has always been like something straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. That is, of course, if you exclude slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, institutional racism, employment discrimination, housing discrimination, etc.

Thank goodness this Republican political consultant tweeted this during Black History Month.  Maybe we could get Morgan Freeman to read Emis’s tweet aloud to give it more legitimacy.

Along those same lines, how dare “gays” (do y’all think he wanted to use a different word(s)?) have any grievances?  So what if you get fired from a job just because of your sexual orientation?  This is America, love or or leave it!

I wonder how many Republican candidates agree with this consultant’s sentiment?