Alex Koppelman: Quote of the day: The quote in question comes from an Andy McCarthy who evidently writes for National Review. McCarthy is so preoccupied with insulting people -- Obama, the real left, the Congressional Black Caucus, Bill Ayers, George Soros, almost everyone in or involved with Iran -- that he doesn't allow even the briefest sanity check. Key quote:

The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society.

He then goes on to argue that radical Islam and radical Leftism are compatible:

In fact, they have much more in common than not, especially when it comes to suppression of freedom, intrusiveness in all aspects of life, notions of "social justice," and their economic programs . . . .

I suppose I could charge this Andy fellow with McCarthyite paranoia, but he's breaking new ground. The hard leftism McCarthy accuses Obama of isn't leftist and isn't Obama, and neither have much in common. He does at least admit one difference between hard leftists and Muslims: that the latter hate homosexuals. He ignores the more basic one: that hard leftists aren't keen about religion. The common ground he finds on social justice and economic programs is an illusion: sure, both are concerned with the poor, but Islam (like Christianity) seeks to ameliorate poverty with charity, while the left seeks to eliminate poverty with empowerment. As for the left's "suppression of freedom," any cases he might cite come from societies with long traditions of repression, like Russia and China. Leftists who grew up in liberal societies not only adopt liberties, they take them more seriously than moderates or conservatives do. McCarthy must be confusing the left with someone else here, like the hard right.

Admittedly, I'm getting off the track here. Ever since Jonah Goldberg wrote that stupid book about how American liberalism is derived not from Tom Paine or John Stuart Mill but from Benito Mussolini, I've been perplexed and perturbed not just by the utter stupidity of the right but by their pure fecklessness. Nowadays Obama is indiscriminately labelled a fascist and a socialist, often by the same people, who can't understand the incompatible meanings of the words let alone sense how little they understand Obama. I've always taken it as axiomatic that one should try to understand even one's opponents within their own intellectual frameworks, but this sort of mental short circuit is impossible to take at face value. McCarthy not only doesn't know what he's talking about; he doesn't even have a bare grasp of the vocabulary and grammar he's using.

Still, there is one possibly accurate insight here. It is that Obama, assuming he really does intend to make good on his campaign promise to engage Iran, might prefer dealing with the devils he knows -- Khamanei and Ahmadinejad -- to whoever winds up on top of the upturned apple cart. This is actually a point that is understood far better on the right than on the left. Jeanne Kirkpatrick, to pick one example, wrote a famous essay on why the US generally prefers dealing with dictators. Henry Kissinger is another well versed expert on the subject. Even Jimmy Carter is an example: he found it much easier to deal with Egyptian dictator Anwar Sadat than with Israeli demagogue Menachem Begin. Dictators, at least, are in positions where they can make deals, whereas democrats are often at the mercy of the checks and balances of their systems. (One recalls, for instance, all the treaties Clinton signed, like Kyoto, that Congress never ratified.)

Still, I doubt that Obama has a practical, let alone moral, preference for dictators. More likely he's just being realistic, taking the world as he finds it rather than trying to recast the acts of others into his moral universe. One of the worst habits American politicians and pundits have is to view the choices of other nations through their own political prism -- a rare trait shared by most on both left and right. Obama almost uniquely recognizes that it's not his choice or preference who governs in Iran. His position may be pragmatic, recognizing that since there is nothing constructive he can do there's no point taking sides, or he may, more deeply, understand that as an American, responsible for US interests, he can't honestly judge what's best for Iranians. Either way, what he's doing isn't ideological, neither left nor right. No wonder McCarthy is so befuddled: he can't imagine someone disciplined enough not to let their politics overwhelm their responsibilities.

McCarthy is, like most of the Bomb Iran contingent, quick to jump to the conclusion that the enemy of his enemy must be some sort of good guy. In reality, the reform movement in Iran is carefully positioning itself as the true heir of the Revolution. They make much of Shiite religious tradition, especially the cult of martyrdom, much as the 1979 revolutionaries did. Their characterization of the "dictators" links Ahmadinejad directly to the Shah. A reformed Iran may mean a lot of good things for the individual freedom of Iranians, but it's unlikely to change much in Iran's foreign policy. Obama has charted a diplomatic course, trying not to jeopardize future relationships for any conceivable outcome. That's a dilligence that the Bomb Iran crowd needn't trouble themselves with. They may be happy to cheer the reformers on right now, but they'll be even happier when they can resume their Bomb Iran campaign.

Alex Koppelman: What happened to the right's skill with language? The utter nonsense of McCarthy and Jonah Goldberg is just the tip of Mount Everest on the right. They've been dumbing down at an alarming rate for a while now:

Whatever happened to the right's skill at fighting political battles by using language as a primary weapon? Death tax, socialized medicine, partial-birth abortion -- those were the good old days of the Republican message wars. The new messaging reads, sometimes, like it was written by a bunch of kids too busy sticking their tongues out at each other to really give the wording much thought. They turned "stimulus" into "porkulus," dubbed General Motors "Government Motors" and unsuccessfully pushed a resolution in the Republican National Committee that called upon the Democratic Party to start referring to itself as the Democrat Socialist Party.

The Frank Luntz advice on how to derail health care reform is more sophisticated: it involves pretending to embrace reform and thereby stinking it up as much as possible. (You always know when the Republicans are bucking their polling because that's when they resort to subterfuges like Healthy Forests.) But as the GOP shrinks, more and more they fall back on the Reagan idea that name calling -- think Evil Empire -- shows resolve and moral courage. Hence, once they tag it ObamaCare they figure they've won. If they keep it up, maybe they'll shrink enough we can drown them in a bathtub.