Political rhetoric in the United States has always been feverish and low on scruples. That’s the nature of democracies. Yet there has arisen a new atmosphere in the past decade, and it is not a result of right-wing talk radio. It is instead a legacy of the 1960s New Left, which held that purity of purpose justifies any tactic short of murder.

Purity of purpose, moreover, is to be found only in progressive, statist quarters. All others must endure whatever the statists wish to visit upon them.

At National Review, Kathryn Lopez nails the hypocritical double standard of contemporary political rhetoric, and she reminds us that such efforts can backfire:

Those who want to take Bachmann out as a candidate by throwing all these things at the campaign wall might want to consider what out-of-control, below-the-belt frenzied attacks have done to make a phenomenon of Sarah Palin, now the subject of a major documentary that might just be in your local theater.

That which doesn’t kill a candidate may make her stronger, however deep in mud she finds herself.

The slurs leveled at her husband (noted in Lopez’s article), like those previously aimed at Sarah Palin’s family, are beneath contempt. I am tempted to ask of such people, “Have you no shame? Have you no sense of decency?” But of course we all already know that the answer is a resounding no.