APA conventions often feature Newman s plays, even lectures by the good doctor himself. Other times, the Left is an equal opportunity offender with all sorts of bigotry leveled against Catholics and other groups. Recall that at the 1992 Democratic convention Jesse Jackson compared Dan Quayle to King Herod. Whatever else happened at the much-maligned 1992 GOP convention in Houston, there were simply no comparable personal attacks levied against Democrats. More recently, top congressional Democrats, when they re not busy calling Republicans divisive, have likened their GOP counterparts to Nazis.
Bigotry cuts across ideological grounds.
Indeed, in the wake of Lieberman s selection there was speculation about whether the country was ready for a Jewish Vice President. The question assumes that rednecks and other unseemly folks who can loosely be categorized as denizens of the political Right would protest Lieberman. Interestingly, the only public anti-Semitism in response to Mr. Lieberman s nomination has come from liberal quarters. Last month, William Tatum, the liberal publisher of the Amsterdam News , a black weekly, suggested the Jews had bought Lieberman s nomination. At a press conference, Jesse Jackson, normally vigilant in the face of bigotry, repeatedly refused to condemn Mr. Tatum s remarks.