“Un-American”

Quickly, while packing.

In my review of Zoë Heller’s sensational novel The Believers, I observed in passing that un-American is a “term used exclusively on the Left to pound away at the Right for imaginary sins.” (See footnote 2.)

In a coauthored editorial in USA Today this morning, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) and minority leader Steny Hoyer (D–Md.) object to the “ugly campaign” of opposing President Obama’s proposed health call reform by misrepresenting it. The campaign, they say, includes the tactic of disrupting public meetings. Then they write: “These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views—but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.”

Only the Left accuses its opponents of un-American activities.

Thus my small contribution to a history of contemporary political discourse in the United States.