Letter: Hate campaign is in full swing

Friday, March 14, 2003 | 8:58 a.m.

I see Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio has taken a page from the Las Vegas intellectual who was smashing French products with a bulldozer. The Honorable Mr. Ney ordered the House cafeteria to serve "freedom fries" and "freedom toast." Though neither of these is probably French in origin, the message is clear; if you have a debate with someone, you win it with a hate campaign by an ethnic cleansing of the language.

The White House has even threatened Mexico with the same treatment if it does not go along with the Bush war. I suppose we could change Taco Bell to Liberty Bell and maybe get a steamroller to flatten some burritos, but the Mexicans are not the only problem country. The Germans are also against the war, so do we change the bratwurst to a Democracy Dog? And what about the Russians? Do we sidle up to the bar and ask the bar-keep for a Victory and Tonic? The problem with hate as a debate argument is that hating all those countries only emphasizes the amount of dissent. As Hitler demonstrated, if you're going to scapegoat, it's better to have just one evil enemy.

The hate campaign is just more of the disinformation pumped out by a government that speaks only in dilemmas of good and evil, and you are with us or against us. The free press has not done much to clarify issues either, as a poll shows that 42 percent of Americans believe Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9-11 attack. Debate of all kinds in the media has become reduced to being loud and interrupting the other speaker, especially if she is a woman.

Instead of attacking France, maybe we should examine some of the courtesies of "Old Europe" when it comes to debate. Otherwise the Democrats best chance in 2004 might be to run Jerry Springer for president.

JERRY BITTS