The Coming Democratic Show Trials

My Top 3

The term “nutroots” is used a lot by folks on the right to describe the most vocal and activist part of the Democratic Party, especially the part that is very active on the Internet. The term is usually used derisively and connotes a fringe group well out on the bleeding left edge. The biggest nutroots jamboree in the country is the yearly Netroots Nation convention, headed up by “Kos”, whose real name is Markos Moulitsas. It’s a pretty big deal for Democrats. It attracts sitting Senators and Representatives, Presidential candidates, and party bigwigs up and down the party power structure.

I don’t use the term often because I believe it incorrectly marginalizes the people it describes. The people who attend the Netroots Nation convention aren’t fringe radicals trying to wheedle their way into the inner sanctum of Democratic power. They’re firmly there. Moulitsas writes columns for two major news publications. The so-called nutroots are the folks who volunteer to work on campaigns, run “get out the vote” drives, donate lots of money to Democratic candidates, call and write their members of Congress, and do all the things that perfectly define the term “party base”. When Democratic candidates look for the heart of the party to get behind them, it’s the nutroots they’re looking for.

That matters because these activists and their allies have a plan. Byron York caught an interview with Dahlia Lithwick, who runs the Washington Post-owned Slate web site, that outlines just what these folks plan on doing from the first day they take over.

The word “Nuremberg” is involved. And “truth commission”.

Here’s a good summation of what they were talking about:

We talked a lot about this notion that it’s bad for America, that it will rip America apart if we have hearings or we have criminal trials or if we have war crimes tribunals. And I think it’s really worse for America if we

Now it’s worth pointing out that the Democrats have had a truckload of hearings already on various grievances they have with the Bush administration and every one of them has come to naught. If there were evidence of criminal wrongdoing, you can bet that the Dems would have found some way to get charges filed. Lithwick is softpedaling what the options really are, but I’ll run them down for you.

1) Yet more Congressional hearings.
2) A “truth commission” run by such even-handed and rational folks as John Conyers or Dennis Kucinich.
3) A Nuremberg-style tribunal which will be difficult since the Nuremberg Trials used unique rules for defendants who were not US citizens.

I can almost guarantee you that if the Democrats take untrammeled control of the Federal Government, they will make Joseph McCarthy look like an elderly nun on Thorazine. They will, in whatever form they think they can get away with, hold show trials for every Bush administration official they can corral. If you think that politics is ugly now, you wait until the Democrats start digging through every single piece of paper generated by this administration (and that’s exactly what Lithwick said they’re talking about). The masks will be off and you will see just how deeply fascism runs in today’s progressive movement.