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Victor Davis Hanson: No Rules in the Arena?

[Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College.]

It was certainly uncouth of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., to scream out "You lie" at his commander-in-chief in the middle of Barack Obama's recent healthcare speech before a joint session of Congress.

And others who keep insisting that the president doesn't have an authentic U.S. birth certificate clearly come off as unhinged — much like just-resigned White House green-jobs czar Van Jones does for having signed his name to a petition stating that the Bush administration may have allowed the 9/11 murders of 3,000 people to happen.

During his speech the other night, the president calmly called for a new civility — although he had just accused his opponents of dissimulation in their attack on his healthcare plan, while himself presenting many dubious suppositions as fact.

Over the last three decades, we saw vicious attacks on Ronald Reagan and on Bill Clinton, and their tough replies in turn. But recently the vicious rhetoric has escalated far beyond anything in the past. The smears seem reminiscent more of the brawling on the eve of the Civil War, or the nastiness during the 1960s that took decades to heal.

No one knows what the rules of engagement are now. Republicans have not forgotten that Democratic legislators loudly booed Bush during his 2005 “State of the Union.” Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, not long ago boasted, "I hate Republicans!" Around the same time, the New Republic published an article entitled "Why I hate George W. Bush."

Major politicians like former Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W-Va., and former Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, have compared George W. Bush or his supporters to Nazis or the brown shirts. A major publishing house released a novel about killing President Bush; a movie won a prize at the Toronto Film Festival with the same theme. Bush Derangement Syndrome was no joke.

What exactly has gone wrong?

A number of things. For years, liberals were out of power. They became increasingly shrill in their frustration at George W. Bush — who seemed to set them off like no other Republican in memory.

Now that Democrats control both the Congress and the presidency, they are once more the establishment. Yet suddenly they have become angered that some conservatives, in tit-for-tat fashion, would dare resort to some of the crassness that was used to defame Bush — when any means were felt necessary to achieve the noble ends of opposing his policies...
Read entire article at Private Papers (website of Victor Davis Hanson)