by DAVID CORN
April 2001
What Right wingers say ----
But even as rightists control the White House and Congress, cons still claim they are besieged. Terry Jeffrey, the editor of Human Events, asserted that "the iron law of American journalism" still stands: "The most conservative candidate in any campaign will be demonized by the establishment press." (Perhaps he ought to ask Al Gore about this.) Coulter, in all seriousness, said that Republicans and conservatives--in battling Democrats and liberals--"are always at a disadvantage because we won't lie." One activist complained that Democrats "with their talking points run circles around Republicans." Another fretted that the GOP, up against a Democratic Party backed by organized labor, was "losing the ground campaign." An NRA official had to remind him that the gun lobby runs its own ground campaign pretty darn well. Perhaps it's tough to be in power when you're accustomed to viewing yourself as a victim of persecution.
Of course, enemies abound. The National Right to Work Foundation's Stefan Gleason reported that the AFL-CIO "has now embraced communist influences." Senator Mitch McConnell noted that campaign finance reform is a plot mounted by Hollywood, academia and the media to "quiet your vote...[so] they'll have more power." The NRA's Wayne LaPierre warned that the organizers of a UN conference on gun control "want the marvelous millennial youth [of the United States] not to be American citizens but global citizens.... I say never!" Andrea Sheldon Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition accused Planned Parenthood of defending abortion rights so it can make money selling fetal remains. Then what about stem cell research that is supported by Bush?
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