http://Dems.Lynch.Newt
JR., JOHN J. PITNEY
HTTP://DEMS.LYNCH.NEWT by John J. Pitney, Jr. The Democratic National Committee's site on the World Wide Web (http://www.democrats.org) recently invited computer users to take part in a high-tech...
...The devil, they signed a contract with the devil...
...Still, the game crossed into the realm of questionable behavior...
...According to a DNC spokeswoman, the "hangman" joke was intended "as a takeoff on a child's game and was not meant as anything more than showing that the speaker is extreme and childish...
...Casual usage has rubbed some of the edge off of the word hate, but here it applies with all its soul-churning, mouth-foaming force...
...This bore some resemblance to a death threat...
...If that observation seems overblown, just imagine what would happen if someone sent the White House a picture of the president hanging from a gallows...
...In the twisted minds of the McVeighs of the world," she said, "this could be a hit list...
...Democrats might argue that their hatred of Gingrich is not a major national issue and that the "hangman" game was merely a misstep by overzealous DNC staffers...
...A few months later, after the National Republican Congressional Committee issued a "Wanted" poster featuring Democrats who had voted against the Contract with America, the Democrats were quick to cry foul...
...John J. Pitney, Jr., associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, last wrote about a fraudulent Tocqueville quotation for The Weekly Standard...
...For each correct guess, the site added a new part to a stick figure and displayed a different quotation from Gingrich...
...This incident points out just how much, how virulently, the Democrats hate the speaker...
...Don't try this at home: the Secret Service would investigate at once, and rightly so...
...At a 1994 campaign rally, the wife of Michigan Democratic Rep...
...The Democratic National Committee's site on the World Wide Web (http://www.democrats.org) recently invited computer users to take part in a high-tech lynching of Speaker Gingrich...
...At the end of the game, the screen showed the stick figure hanging from a gallows, above the game's magic word: EXTREMIST...
...In a press release, Democratic National Committee chairman Don Fowler also denounced the poster...
...In this Internet version of the game of "hangman," the player would guess letters of the alphabet to spell a word...
...And he called on Americans to rise against them: "It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior...
...Maxine Waters saw her face on the poster, she told the Los Angeles Times, she sent it to the House sergeant-at-arms, which handles House security, and the FBI...
...You can find the release on the same Web site as the "hangman" game...
...If they insist on being irresponsible with our common liberties, then we must be all the more responsible with our liberties...
...When Rep...
...The Republicans, she said, "signed a contract not with their constituents, but with Newt Gingrich...
...Indeed, one might shrug off the incident- except that Democrats themselves have made such an issue out of the consequences of political "hate speech...
...Sander Levin let slip what a good many Democrats were feeling...
...Recall how in his remarks on the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton assailed nameless "purveyors of hatred and division" and "promoters of paranoia...
Vol. 1 • January 1996 • No. 19
