In typical fashion Maggie has no intention of holding herself to her own newly created standard.

With the Georgia runoff election underway and tomorrow’s Congressional votes on the election certification, there is no shortage of distemper to be found in the media landscape. At the Washington Post Margaret Sullivan did not want to feel left behind by the thundering herd of perturbed pundits, so she weighed in with her new take on how to properly address the players in our political landscape.

Sullivan used the activities involved in the Georgia runoff to express her contempt for a particular action — and then she elected to use that same tactic on a broader swath of the electorate. In her most recent column, Maggie begins by noting that Republican candidate Sen. Kelly Loeffler always refers to her challenger, Raphael Warnock, as a ‘’radical liberal’’. It is a common campaign tactic used by candidates of both parties, but Maggie finds the practice in this case distasteful. ‘’It’s usually aimed like a lethal weapon at Democratic office-seekers,’’ declares the columnist.

Sullivan then turns a 180 and announces that it is actually acceptable to use this fatal terminology, so long it is applied to a particular target — Conservatives. So where it was unseemly — and probably hateful — for one woman to use this designation towards one candidate, Sullivan promptly stipulates it is perfectly fine to label large numbers of Americans, in several categories, with this same definition.

Anyone who has backed President Trump, supported his policies, or echoes his position on the election is now considered radical: the pundits on three news networks; members of Congress; or any candidates wanting higher office and running with his support. Her criteria are centered primarily on the challenges being seen regarding the election. 

As she puts it, in hyperbolic prose, those deserving of the ‘’radical’’ designation are, ‘’Politicians who are willing to bring down democracy to appease a cult leader.’’ She cites how not resorting to her new glossary term ‘’softens dangerous edges’’, all while quoting another expert who declares what a dozen GOP Senators are poised to do tomorrow is subverting democracy. If only she was as diligent to think through her accusation as she is to point hysterical fingers.

What Sullivan fails to note —  or, more likely, chooses to ignore — is that those Senate members will be employing a conscripted practice. They are not breaking a law nor violating a Constitutional element if they act as promised tomorrow. Our national foundation is not under attack when they are casting a Senate vote, one which is established in the federal bylaws and documents. They are hardly threatening our democracy by using an action granted by that democracy.

As Sullivan bemoans that her claim of alleged radicalism on the right has become normalized, she needs us to avoid looking into her consistent support for the various players in the Democrat party who hold views that most pragmatic thinkers would deem to be radical. It soon becomes apparent that in her view anyone she disagrees with is the radical. Sullivan has defended Bernie Sanders and even pushed for him to have proper recognition in the press, when she felt his early lead in the primary was overlooked. The avowed socialist who had a laundry list of proposals that were blatantly socialist in nature is not a radical, mind you. She even said Bernie supporters ‘’despised’’ the mainstream media, and then she agreed they had good reason to do so. But Trump and his supporters are radicals for despising the press.

Sullivan has also run defense for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Find the column spaces she dedicated to the radical Green New Deal proposals or any of the other daft ideas to pour forth from her wise mind over the years. Maggie set up her shield on behalf of Biden’s VP selection Kamala Harris. Her stated desire to eliminate private health insurance is not considered among her radical agenda goals. Then there is Joe himself. Biden not only has adapted AOC’s Green New Deal but he has wanted to ban fracking, open the borders and give immigrants health care, and wants a federal rollout of California’s disastrous gig economy labor law.

Those, and many other wild proposals, do not qualify Biden to be called a radical — Senators casting a vote which they are granted are, however. In this fashion of facile accusation from the Washington Post writer does not make her a radical. Her very snide and basic partisan take makes her something else — pedestrian.