[andyfox]

These people had nothing to do with the Democratic Party. The party nominated Hubert Humphrey in 1968, not Eugene McCarthy. And it would not have nominated Robert Kennedy, no matter what you hear. In those days, the primaries were not delegate-electing primaries. Humphrey didn't even run in the California primary (Kennedy beat McCarthy) because he had the nomination sewn up.

The did nominate McGovern in 1972, but he was not a "collectivist," he simply saw the folly and the evil of the war.

The right has always accused progressives of being "collectivists." It is the right who questions the patriotism of people who are too far to the left for them, not the left that questions the patriotism of those who are too far right for them. It's one thing for an anonymous marcher to hold up a sign calling Bush the equivalent of Hitler. It's another for a nationally known writer like Noonan to call Democrats communists because she doesn't like what they say.

There were indeed people, in the 1960s, who felt there was a genuine opportunity for, if not revolution, a radical leftward restructuring of American politics. Those people did indeed go away, or moved into the mainstream. Tom Hayden ended up as a California assemblyman, for heaven's sake, and writing about being Irish.

There were people on the left who apologized for Stalin in the 1930s; there were people on the right who did the same for Hitler. There were no people in the White House on the left who said the Contras were the moral equivalent of the founding fathers. This was more than "aid and comfort." It was thugs murdering peasants, taught how to do so by our government, and being praised for it by our president.

I reread the article myself, and it is sheer fantasy. For example, Noonan asserts that the Democratic party only wants to thwart the "trek" of the current Republican president. Republicans, in Noonan's world, would never do this.

Did she happen to miss the presidency of Bill Clinton? The Republicans'special prosecutor felt Clinton should be impeached for having oral sex.

Now you know, HDPM, in what little regard I hold Mr. Clinton. But to say Republicans are guided by a higher morality and would never stoop to merely wanting to thwart the trek of a president from the opposing party merely becasue he was from the opposing party is hogwash, pure and simple.

I saw Bob Dole bemoaning the lack of civility in politics the other night. Crude propagandistic namecalling, like Ms. Noonan's piece, makes me agree with him.