An "-isms" arms race is under way in America.

The author Karl Frisch is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, research, and information center in Washington, D.C.

Turn on cable news or talk radio and you're likely to hear a conservative host, right-wing pundit, or Republican elected official accuse President Obama and the Democratic Congress of just about every "-ism" in the book.

Socialism, Marxism, Leninism, fascism, Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism -- few, if any, "-isms" have been spared as the right escalates its daily verbal assault on the progressive agenda.

In fact, according to a search of broadcasts on TVEyes.com, since Obama's inauguration in January, these terms and others like them have been thrown around on cable news at least 3,000 times. Add conservative talk radio and the nation's newspaper op-ed pages to the mix and watch that figure grow like a well-watered, limited edition Bill O'Reilly Chia Pet.

Take the third most-listened-to radio voice in America, San Francisco's Michael Savage, who recently called Obama "a neo-Marxist fascist dictator in the making." That's one of the kinder things Savage has said of the president during his daily three-hour hatefest. He's also claimed that the "radical left," including Obama, "dream[s]" of "Maoist revolution" with "death camps" and that Obama appointees "actually have almost the same exact policies as the Nazi Party did."

Then there's Fox News' "-ism" king, Sean Hannity, who has dubbed the United States under Obama the "United States of France" (bonus points for bringing up the dreaded French) and the president himself "commissar-in-chief." Hannity, who hates to pass up an opportunity to advance GOP talking points, has even applauded congressional Republicans for finally using the "S-word." He's also said the Obama administration "is on a mission to hijack capitalism in favor of collectivism. ... The Bolsheviks have already arrived." He opened one recent show by declaring, "Day number 52 of the socialism that you've been waiting for." At least he can count. Spelling, on the other hand, doesn't appear to be Hannity's strong suit. His Red-baiting blood runs so -- well, red, I guess, that his program recently misspelled "comrades" in on-air graphics.

The same folks who've likened progressive policy initiatives to communism have gone on to accuse the president and other Democrats of "McCarthyism." The bizarre nature of this historical comparison is apparently lost on those making the charge. It would be a bit like practicing magic days before kicking off a witch hunt. Hocus-pocus, indeed.

No issue incurs the wrath of these modern-day Red hunters more than health-care reform. For more than 75 years, conservatives have smeared progressive attempts to reform our faltering health-care system as "socialized medicine."

Let's get one thing straight. Anyone who argues that progressive health-care reform initiatives amount to "socialized medicine" is being disingenuous at best. At worst, they lack a basic understanding of what "socialized medicine" really is.

Simply put, health-care reform that leaves the for-profit health insurance industry intact, reform that leaves doctors and other medical professionals free to offer their services outside of a government system, reform that leaves citizens free to choose a private health-care plan over a government plan simply can't be described honestly as "socialized medicine."

As the Urban Institute put it last year, "socialized medicine involves government financing and direct provision of health care services," and therefore, progressive health-care reform proposals do not "fit this description."

That is correct, of course, but that hasn't stopped conservatives from claiming otherwise for decades. Since the 1930s, conservatives have assailed at least 16 different progressive health-care reform initiatives as "socialized medicine" or as a step that would inevitably lead in that direction.

What exactly has constituted "socialized medicine" to conservatives over the past seven-plus decades?

How about Franklin Roosevelt's consideration of government health insurance when crafting the 1935 bill that created Social Security, or Lyndon Johnson's 1965 amendment to the Social Security Act establishing Medicare? Both raised the ire of conservatives, who were quick to run with the "socialized medicine" smear.

In fact, back in 1964, Ronald Reagan, then stumping for GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, said of Medicare, "Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients."

Like Roosevelt and Johnson decades before him, Bill Clinton's health-care initiative in 1993 and 1994 and his work to create the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997 were attacked time and again as "socialized medicine."

Pick a progressive president. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, and now Obama -- they've all faced the stale "socialized medicine" routine from the right.

Will it get any better in the weeks and months ahead as Congress debates the president's budget, which will reportedly seek to reform health care? I'm not holding my breath. My own political pessim-ism? More like real-ism with an eye toward history.

Mohammed cartoon row blights race for new Nato chief

To conclude that Turkey does not fit in the European Union we can calculate how difficult it is to have Turkey in the Nato.


Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (left) talks to Albanian president Bamir Tipo at the 2010 World Cup qualifying match between Denmark and Albania in Copenhagen April 1, 2009.

Hopes of a grand announcement of the new Nato chief this week look set to be dashed because of Turkish opposition to the front-runner.
Until recently, Denmark's charismatic prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen looked set to waltz into the job to succeed the current secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, when his term runs out in July. But Turkey, Nato's only predominantly Muslim member, is now blocking plans to name the 56-year-old Dane during the alliance's upcoming 60th birthday summit, calling his candidacy "unacceptable" because of the cartoon crisis. Rasmussen famously refused to apologize for caricatures of the prophet Mohammed when they were printed in a Danish newspaper in 2006, triggering violent riots in several Muslim countries. A Nato diplomat, who asked not to be named, said allies were now scrambling to secure Turkey's backing during last-minute negotiations ahead of a mega-summit hosted by France and Germany in the Rhineland, due to be attended by US president Barack Obama. "All is not lost, we hope the Turks will give in at the very last moment and we can still make it by Saturday," he said. "But it's looking a lot harder now than a week ago."

Image problem
Denmark has some 700 troops in Afghanistan, mostly battling Taliban insurgents in Helmand, and although Rasmussen has secured broad support from Nato allies on both sides of the Atlantic, Turkish concerns over his image are being echoed privately by other countries, which point to the need to secure maximum Muslim support as part of the Nato's Afghan mission.
Aside from the cartoon controversy, Rasmussen has also spoken out against Turkish membership of the EU and in favour of Kurdish separatists. "The point that people are making is that Nato needs a new face with the Muslim world and all the issues that Denmark has faced in recent years will not help," says Dan Hamilton, director of the Washington-based Center for Transatlantic Relations. "I don't think it's anything to do with him personally, because his credentials are impeccable. But it is a point that does need considering."
In a sign that he might be bracing for a Turkish veto, Rasmussen recently suggested that he might not even interested in the post, though he has also never denied speculation that he was a candidate.

Polish risk
The candidacy of the second-favorite, the Polish foreign minister, has also run aground because of his outspoken views on Russia. Radoslaw Sikorski, a loquacious former journalist, has the backing of fellow former Warsaw Pact nations such as Slovakia and Hungary, but many others fret that relations with Russia could take a turn for the worse under his leadership. Although Siskorski has recently toned down his rhetoric, even going as far as suggesting Russia could one day join Nato, Warsaw's willingness to host a US missile shield could bar his path. "His previous position on things like the planned missile shield and his views Russia makes him a very problematic candidate," says Dan Korski from the European Council on Foreign Relations.
That leaves Canada's defence minister Peter MacKay, who should not even be a candidate in the first place because of the time-honored rule that the secretary general post goes to a European and the top military post to an American. "But Nato is very good at breaking rules," says Herman Schaper, the Dutch Ambassador to Nato. "So if the Canadian candidate is good, there is nothing to say he could not get it." Although many feel it is time to reward Canada's strong role in Nato, MacKay stands only a slim chance.
Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere may end up a safe compromise choice, but he is handicapped as Norway is not a member of the EU. Nato may well chose to postpone the announcement and wait for Obama's visit to Turkey next week, when it is hoped he will proffer sweeteners to cajole Ankara into accepting Rasmussen. But whoever takes on the job carries an enormous big burden: to get more public and government support for the mission in Afghanistan in order to turn it into a success.