A necessary correction

To commonly misused terms. Just like the improper use of the word "appeasement" few other words are so misused as the red-baiting smear (that I honestly thought had been relegated to the history trash bin--after all, who really worries about Communism now?) From Andrew Sullivan:

A reader writes:
As a specialist on Soviet history and more particularly on the Soviet Gulag, I am just so annoyed by the ignorance of statements like this:

"I have said publicly, and I will again, that unless he proves me wrong, he is a Marxist," - Tom DeLay.

"And did the Obama rally begin with the Soviet National Anthem?" - Hugh Hewitt

Put these guys and their ilk in my class for a semester and let them understand what Marxism and Communism were really about. Progressive taxation, no matter how much one might be opposed to it, is simply qualitatively different than the elimination of private ownership of the means of production. Government regulation, even if it interferes with the economy, is not the equivalent of total nationalization of the economy. These are not minor distinctions, but fundamental to the very definition of what Soviet Communism was, and why it had the outcomes it did. The attempt to tie Democrats and liberals (the latter of which was a term of abuse within the Soviet political structure) is incredibly ignorant of the actual history and structure of Soviet Communism.

***

Kos diarist Hunter adds this for the Hammer:

"Tom Delay, Indicted Republican: Unless he proves me wrong, [Obama] is a Marxist.

Hunter, Blogger: Unless he proves me wrong, Tom Delay lures children into his van with candy, gasses them to death with bug spray, and uses their powdered bones as an aphrodisiac when making love to all the animals at the San Antonio Sea World.

Prove me wrong, pal, prove me wrong."