John Avlon's message is common sense

From the geniuses who brought us the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism, we now have:

--Partisans considering purity tests for candidates.

--People who once said it was unpatriotic to criticize the president painting the new chief's picture to look like the Joker.

--Talk show hosts getting filthy rich by convincing the easily duped that one political party (or the other) is to blame for all the country's woes.

John Avlon thinks it's time this country straightened its civic backbone and stood up to these nuts.

A political columnist for The Daily Beast, a CNN commentator and author of "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America," Avlon says these hyper-partisan forces are very real and very dangerous. But for all the current hand-wringing, it's nothing new.

"We've been sold this snake oil before," he said.

But some people are still buying. Somewhere, P. T. Barnum is saying, "I told you so."

Hate for profit

Avlon, whose family lives here, will speak Thursday evening at the Charleston Library Society. The event is sold out, which may be a sign that there are still plenty of people who haven't fallen off the far ends of the political spectrum.

His message is common sense, something that has fallen by the wayside lately as partisanship is equated with patriotism and ideologues are on, as Avlon says, the "hunt for heretics."

He blames all this on the rise of the partisan media (you don't really believe "Fair and Balanced," do you?), entertainers masquerading as political analysts who polarize for profit (Limbaugh, Beck, Moore) and the Internet, which makes it easier for like-minded nuts to find each other (kind of like online dating).

Make no mistake, Avlon knows a little about extremists. A former speech writer for Rudy Giuliani, he was in New York City when those zealots knocked down the Twin Towers. He wrote the mayor's eulogies for all those fallen police officers and firefighters.

So it's kind of hard to dispute his opinions about people who brandish hate and fear to prop up partisanship.

He's seen where that path leads.

All in moderation?

Avlon has been highlighting the "Wingnut of the Week" on CNN for more than a year now. It's his definition for anyone on either fringe of politics.

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That includes the people who believe the Bush administration orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks to start a war and the folks who don't believe Barack Obama was born in the United States -- even after the state of Hawaii sent photos of his birth certificate to every news outlet in the country.

The government can't get it together enough to pave roads, so how can anyone expect these same politicians to credibly pull off all these full-blown conspiracies? Come on, Jim DeMint would filibuster the bill to pay for the black helicopters.

Avlon thinks while the political parties pander to both ends of the spectrum, there is a great opportunity for moderates (which most folks are) to push all these nuts out of the way.

He's right.

The only purity test we need is for the Ashley River.