Pig to Man, Man to Pig

I was shocked to read Peter Dreier's informative article on the Huffington Post titled "Sidney Blumenthal Uses Former Right-Wing Foes to Attack Obama." I always admired Sidney Blumenthal (above), who is very close to Hillary Clinton and served as an aide for many years to President Bill Clinton. He is a brilliant political commentator and scholar with a sharp analytical mind, not to mention a gifted writer. In spite of Christopher Hitchens' furious denunciations of Blumenthal years ago (over what, I can't remember now), I never lost my respect for the man. So it hit me like a sucker punch to read that Blumenthal was using tactics pioneered by Karl Rove (below) in an effort to derail Senator Barack Obama's political campaign. Blumenthal has resorted to the worst sort of smear campaigning to bring down Obama. I won't list all of Blumenthal's creepy tactics here (it'll depress the hell out of me, quite honestly). Read the Dreier article and see for yourself. Frankly, after reading Dreier's piece, I'm disgusted with Blumenthal and my level of respect for the man has plummeted. And next time I hear some starry-eyed liberal bemoan that Republicans have a monopoly on the politics of hate and character assassination, I'll just drop the name Sidney Blumenthal. As George Orwell wrote at the end of Animal Farm: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."