Joe Biden must be very afraid of the Tea Party movement… He has a scary usage of words.

Here is an excerpt from Jeff Jacoby‘s article, Smearing the Tea Party:

I am no prig when it comes to robust political commentary. I have always believed that the marketplace of ideas has room for rhetoric that is passionate, combative, or angry. And I respect the power of an apt metaphor to enliven a critique or sharpen an argument. But there is language that goes beyond the limits of decency. Smearing people as “terrorists” — as the equivalent of hate-filled zealots who blow up embassies and gun down children and detonate bombs in crowded subways — adds nothing but poison to a debate over fiscal policy. There is nothing clever or illuminating about such invective. It is illiberal and grotesque and it pollutes our public discourse.

(JeffJacoby.com, August 3, 2011.)