See It Now

I just watched Representative Michele Bachmann (R - Minnesota) on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, and she expressed fear of a Barack Obama presidency because she believes he is anti-American.

Additionally, she considers House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D - California) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D - Nevada) to be extreme leftists.

Obviously, her conclusion is based on his past-associations with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, and former Trinity United Church of Christ pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Now, before you argue the merits of Obama's explanation for his connections to these figures, pay attention to the label that Senator Bachmann slapped on him: anti-American.

Now, focus on the tags that she placed on Pelosi and Reid: extreme-leftists.

The charges that Bachmann leveled against Obama, Pelosi, and Reid echo the vicious smears made against numerous American citizens during the McCarthy era.

Then, to be labeled as anti-American meant that you were a communist.

What does it mean to be anti-American, today, in the age of terrorism?

This is the propaganda that John McCain and his supporters are disseminating throughout the country in their ongoing effort to demonize Barack Obama.

In so many words, they have characterized his core principals as an amalgam of radicalism, communism, and pacifism.

So, as our nation's roiling economy - complete with soaring deficits, enormous debt, and high unemployment rates - continues to founder, John McCain and his surrogates respond to the crisis by instilling xenophobic fears into America's collective psyche.

Remember the words of Edward R. Murrow when he spoke out against the actions of Joseph McCarthy:

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."