Who are the "socialists" in our government? The National Review names and lists them for us

[sufrommich]

Big surprise, they're called Democrats.

‘Sen. Bernie Sanders wants Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) to start naming names.” So reports Politico’s Glenn Thrush.

He was referring to the “usually soft-spoken” senior Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, who had told a Birmingham reporter that there are 17 “socialists” in Congress.

Bachus’s assertion prompted what Thrush characterized as “cries of McCarthyism in the lefty blogosphere” — especially when he named only one lawmaker: Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who happily calls himself a “democratic socialist.”

“Has Spencer released his list yet?” Sanders joked. “Everybody’s waiting with bated breath. . . . I think at the very least he has to tell people what his definition of socialism is.”

At the risk of inviting the Left’s wrath, let me help flesh out a list. As for that elusive definition of “socialism,” I’ll use as a barometer the voting record compiled by the Senate’s only avowed man of the people — the distinguished gentleman from Vermont himself. That is, we can presume the more often a lawmaker votes with Congress’s lone acknowledged socialist, the greater his or her comfort level with the sort of policies he embraces.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjAyOWQwM2RlYWM4YjZmOGYxNjQ0MjQ0OGY3YmU5YzQ=

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. What a bullshit methodology.

I'm not a socialist, but it seems to me that using Sanders' voting record alone to define a socialist is a piss poor way to do things, especially since the bills being voted on are largely authored by Democrats, not socialists.

[sufrommich]

3. Of course it's bullshit. It's intended to label democrats as

"farther to the left than they've ever been (yeah, right) and excuse their McCarthyesque drumbeat.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

5. Precisely.

National Review has more douchebags than a Summer's Eve factory.

[nuxvomica]

2. So now Blue-Dog Gillibrand is a socialist by their reckoning

I guess writing this nonsense beats working for a living.

[PassingFair]

4. Love his "wrap-up" statement, fully supported by the facts presented in the article....

"What one calls these lawmakers — liberals, progressives, statists, or even (gasp) socialists — is less important than our acknowledgment that the center of gravity for today’s liberal is much farther to the left than it has been at any time in our recent history."

LOL!

[TexasObserver]

6. Reminds me of the day I decided to support George McGovern.

It was May of 1972. I hadn't decided yet who I would support for president, but I was liking what I was hearing from McGovern. I was almost a year back from Southeast Asia, and I wanted that damn war over. They didn't want us there. They didn't want to "be like America." It was a bogus war, and I wanted it over.

McGovern was somewhere in Florida campaigning, when some rightwinger yelled at the US Senator and former WWII pilot "I think you're some kind of communist!"

McGovern replied loudly "well, I think you're some kind of idiot!"



These labels of socialist or communist are ludricrous. 35% top tax rate is godly, but 38% is socialism. Yeah, right!

[sufrommich]

7. Great post. Loved the McGovern reference. nt

[sinkingfeeling]

8. So, another RW idiot who hasn't a clue as to what socialism even is.

[Echo In Light]

9. It's what they WANT it be that counts, not what it actually is

[blondeatlast]

10. My stomach hurts---

from laughing so hard! If those guys are socialist, moderate liberal B@L is off the political map!

Ouch--I think I just pulled a muscle.