http://blogs.jta.org/letters/article/2011/01/13/2742552/demonizing-conservatives-is-repugnant Demonizing conservatives is repugnant
By JTA Mailman · January 13, 2011
To the Editor:
Sadly, all I have seen by the mainstream media and various liberal sources in the wake of the Arizona shooting is the demonization of conservatives, who from what I have seen are staunchly pro-U.S./pro-Israel and peaceful.
I was a Democrat who supported folks like Gabrielle Giffords until I started hearing veiled anti-Israel rhetoric more than 10 years ago on what I thought was an intelligent San Francisco Bay Area radio program, The New York Times and the San Jose Mercury News, all of which we subscribed to.
In the past 10-plus years the Democrat ideology, including the biased and wrong criticism of Israel, has abandoned me, the United States and Israel. I have found a home in parts of the Republican Party and the Tea Party. Never have I attended events for either of these and felt anything other than welcomed and included. Not so when I have attended "anti-war" rallies in San Francisco because they are vitriolically anti-U.S. and anti-Israel, or when I was part of pro-Israel
rallies countered by Islamists/leftists calling for the death of Jews.
The knee-jerk reaction against conservatives is repugnant; the response from the left is the real Nazi-like behavior. As repugnant is the silence from the left regarding the plethora of calls to murder or harm conservatives such as President Bush, Sarah Palin, John McCain and more. And worse is that the Jewish community, which has suffered from blood libel, is for the most part silent when conservatism is attacked in the same manner.
Lisa Cohen
Menlo Park, Calif.