President Biden inflames political debate to demagogic levels by equating reasonable legislation to ensure the integrity of the ballot box to Jim Crow (white supremacist) laws, and all The Wall Street Journal can do is call Biden's invidious comment "partisan rhetoric ... detached from facts."

Hasn't the Journal the capacity for outrage when Biden and the totalitarian-minded left resorts to the most vicious demagoguery that is millions of light-years "detached from facts"?  The Journal did write, in the penultimate paragraph of its July 14 lead editorial, "Joe Biden, Jim Crow and Texas": "But Mr. Biden is distorting the truth to justify congressional passage of H.R. 1, a constitutionally dubious takeover of voting rules in all 50 states."  Couldn't the Journal have inserted, at the very least in this editorial, the words "false claims"? 

Yet that same day, July 14, that the Journal replied in the most tepid manner to outrageous comments from Biden and the no less outrageous action by Texas Democrats (imitating Wisconsin Democrats in the days of Gov. Scott Walker) in fleeing the state to prevent the enactment of voting law reforms, the Journal, in a second editorial, "Virginia GOP's Embarrassing Inquisition," came down hard on Virginia Republicans for complaining in a letter to University of Virginia president James E. Ryan (not named in the editorial) about tweets from Prof. Larry J. Sabato, chair of the school's Center for Politics, that employ what the Journal called "mostly typical Democratic invective."

Here is the example of Sabato's "typical Democratic invective" quoted by the Journal: "Trump who governed on the edge of insanity for four long years has gone over the edge. Yet million so of people and 90% of GOP members of Congress, still genuflect before this false god."

The Journal has difficulty with the "investigation" sought by the Virginia GOP as to whether the professor's "public display of bitter partisanship" broke university rules — presumably on fair comment and ethics.  New York Times v. Sullivan stands for the principle of "robust" free speech, and Prof. Sabato is certainly "robust" in his denunciations of Donald J. Trump — but doesn't the Virginia GOP have a right to complain to the president of the University of Virginia about the professor's "outlandish" attacks on Mr. Trump?  Has The Wall Street Journal no words to condemn the vilest demagoguery of Larry Sabato?

Or does the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal agree with the director of the University of Virginia Center of Politics that Donald J. Trump is insane and, in the manner of Caligula, arrogated to himself the aura of a divinity?  Where are the words "Sabato's false claims" in this Journal editorial?  Nowhere to be read.

Prof. Sabato is identified by the Journal as founder, as well as director, of the UVA Center of Politics.  However "robust" the speech we tolerate (except when expressed by Republicans, conservatives, or Trumpists), is it seemly for the head of a university politics center to speak in the foulest of demagogic — and false — language?  What example does this set for UVA students — other than to imitate the language of "typical Democratic invective"?  How does such "invective" serve the national interest in reasoned political debate leading to wide consensus on public issues of great moment?

Here is another example of "Democratic invective" from the Journal's July 14 lead editorial on the president's casual use of the "Jim Crow" term to disparage Republicans, in the context of discussing the flight of Texas Democrat out of the Lone Star State to prevent the enactment of voting law reform by preventing a quorum in the Legislature: "'I left because I am tired of sitting as a hostage,' one lawmaker told the awaiting press at Dulles [Washington, D.C.] airport, 'while Republicans strip away the rights of my constituents to vote.'"  Where are the words "baseless claims" to blast away at such an utter falsehood?

It is in the following paragraph that the Journal, tepidly, commented: "This partisan rhetoric is detached from the facts."  Such "rhetoric" is so antithetical to reality as to fall to the level of Orwellian comment.  Such comment demands the application of the sunlight of truth to serve as a disinfectant, per an observation of Louis Dembitz Brandeis in a 1913 Harper's Weekly article, prior to serving on the United States Supreme Court.

The Journal stated, in the concluding paragraph of the editorial on Biden's malicious use of the term "Jim Crow":

Before Democrats hail quorum breaking as heroism, they might recall that they are trying to pass the most radical agenda in decades with the narrowest majorities in decades.  Who's really undermining democracy?

Of course, it is the Democrats who sought to undermine democracy while Mr. Trump was in the White House, and they are continuing their quest for totalitarian rule with Biden as president.  And, yes, the Journal concluded its July 14 lead editorial with an oblique dig at the Democrats, but understatement is hardly effective against "Democratic invective."  Opposition to the vilest sort of demagoguery that is typical Democrat speech must be shouted from the rooftops.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

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