The Gantry Launchpad

I am not an animal! I am a Democrat, and a human being!

(with apologies to The Elephant Man)

I was just catching up over at Dean's World, when I caught a post by Michael Demmons announcing that Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has Hodgkin's disease.

Now Michael -who wishes well for the Senator, as should we all- remarked that 'There are going to be people on the extreme right who will salivate over this - just as people on the far left get giddy when life throws curves to their "enemies."'

This bothered one conservative regular, who felt that conservatives had been insulted. Apparently he missed the adjective far in the phrase "far right." :) Micheal, in reply, suggested a quick check to see what the freepers (regulars on the Free Republic blog) had to say about Specter's illness, and I decided to take him up on it.

You can find the Free Republic thread here.

At the time I posted this, there were 80 comments, and 31 good wishes, godspeed, and prayers extended to a man the freepers generally don't like. Two should suffice;

Agreed. I hate Specter, and think that the fact that he conned his way to the GOP nomination cost Bush PA in November, but I hope he pulls through all right. And I'm not just saying that because RAT Governor Rendell would name Specter's replacement if he had to step down.

Although I wanted to see Specter go, it was NOT like this.

Good luck in your treatment Arlen, even those of us Toomey supporters are behind you on this one!

So what we're seeing is 39% "good wishes rating" against an opponent. That's pretty good, when you think about it, especially in today's environment.

Naturally one of the commenters had to bring up the DemocraticUnderground, so I tripped on by over there as well. And yes, they had a thread going too.

There were only 53 comments made when I arrived there. And, here's the thing: I counted 22 "good wishes" out of 53 comments, giving a 42% "good wishes rating."

Ok, so it's "only" 3%, but still... I thought the crazy lefties were supposed to be the haters. Oh, yes, there were a couple of nasty remarks, but I'm not quoting them here. If you must see them, follow the link. There will always be a very few, very sad minority who just can't help themselves. But I have to say even I was surprised. I expected a few folks to say nice things, but not nearly half.

What strikes me is that -when you step back and look at the overall picture- both sides in effect reacted similarly to the plight of someone with whom they don't agree. The Donks don't like him because he's a Derm. The Derms don't like him because he a moderate-to-liberal Derm, or (in crusty con terms) a RINO (Republican In Name Only).

So maybe the crunchy cons should stop and consider this the next time they want to call the squishy liberals nothing but a bunch of haters. And maybe those squishy libs might want to consider that the crunchies aren't as heartless as they thought. Yes, you, in the back; I'm talking to you. Stop shaking your head in scorn! Heh.

It's really sad that someone has to get a terrible disease like cancer before we start seeing something in common with the other side.

Posted by Casey at February 18, 2005 12:32 AM | TrackBack