Democrats are devaluing one of the more effective epithets in their considerable arsenal of political slurs by extravagant over-use of the word. Their fondness for it has resulted in the fact that few people listen to them any more when they use it. The word is "extreme" and its variations.
President Bush's judicial nominations are "extremist". The Republican move to end the use of the filibuster to block those nominees is "extreme". Anyone who holds conservative religious views is an "extremist". Anyone who opposes gay marriage is an "extremist". The attempt to reform social security and to institute personal savings accounts is "extreme". Those who yearn for a return to traditional values of truth, commitment, loyalty, and hard work are on the "extreme" right.
After a while it starts to sink in that in the Democrats' lexicon anyone is an "extremist" who disagrees with them. The Democrats want to undo centuries of settled policy on marriage, sex, and family life, but it is those who see value in the traditional ways of looking at these things who are "extreme".
When everyone is an extremist the word ceases to move the listener. It loses its punch, and the Democrats just sound silly every time the try to tarnish another political opponent with it. Bereft of ideas, with no plan for the country to offer the American people, they are reduced to labeling as extremists a significant percentage, perhaps a majority, of the American people.
It's no wonder that they have themselves become a party in extremis.
