Left blackballs the Black Caucus

Opinion Journal:

In the battle for control of the Democratic Party, the George Soros-MoveOn.org crowd is used to getting its way. So it's revealing to watch the consternation in those precincts to the Congressional Black Caucus decision to co-sponsor a pair of Presidential primary debates this year with Fox News.

Liberal activists are livid, to say the least, with one anti-Fox pressure group condemning the Black Caucus for "dancing with the devil." Color of Change, a coalition of black online activists, says the collaboration promulgates "bigoted, hate-filled worldviews." Markos Moulitsas, the DailyKos front man, calls the CBC "corrupt and compromised" for "doing Fox's bidding." His implication is that Black Caucus Members have somehow been bought off, though there is no evidence to support the slur. This is to say nothing of some of the more vicious blog chatter, much of it carrying racial connotations.

All of this induced Howard Dean's Democratic National Committee to announce last week that it won't "sanction" the CBC debates. John Edwards also repeated his profiles-in-courage act by announcing that he won't participate in the CBC-Fox debate. This follows last month's pander when he, the Nevada Democratic Party and Nevada Senator Harry Reid knelt before MoveOn.org demands that another scheduled primary debate co-hosted by Fox be called off. And yesterday Barack Obama bowed to the mob by declaring he also won't attend; so much for the Senator's promise to change the tenor of our politics.

The Internet vigilantes would like to drum Fox News out of polite society, but it's clear from the Black Caucus episode that this isn't really about Fox. This is about who runs the Democratic Party. Ever since they came close to nominating Howard Dean for President in 2004, left-wing Web activists have tried to punish any Democrat who dares to step out of line. They tried to run Joe Lieberman out of the Party for his views on Iraq, and they want to banish California Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher because she's voted for free trade agreements.

The pitchfork carriers now want to tell elected Democratic officials which journalists they can appear in public with. Messrs. Edwards and Obama are bowing to those orders because they've decided they can only defeat Hillary Clinton by running to her left. Of course if by some miracle one of them wins the nomination, he'll be known as the candidate from MoveOn.org in the general election too. Republicans will have fun with that one.

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If they cannot stand up to MoveOn how can they stand up to Osama?

The left's fear of Fox and permitting others to hear a different point of view of their own points to its totalitarian leanings. If it could the left would like to prohibit conservative voices from being heard and it is willing to go so far to keep conservatives from also hearing the voices of the left and it is willing to shaft one of its main constituencies to do so. That is pretty pathetic.