How can you tell whether a conservative commentator is an authentic writer with a voice of independent thought, or simply a party hack for the Republicans, spinning out the latest talking point? I’ll give you two words:

“Democrat Party.”

As in:

• “the Democrat Party has made it abundantly clear…”
• “Then finally we have the Jersey Girls who became shills for the Democrat Party. Which means their grief is infallible. ” (The spat-upon “Jersey Girls” being the wives of men who died in the attacks of September 11, 2001. I guess that’s just a Republican Moral Values tactic I just wouldn’t understand.)
• “their Democrat Party is now pretty much married to John Murtha’s idea of cutting and running…” (This is a two-fer: notice the Republican “cutting and running” vocabulary? Denny is in deep.)
• “although 50 years ago the Democrat party was mainstream, about 40 years ago it cut sharply to the left, and today, it has left the realm of all reason.”
• “And what type of contact did Earle have with other leftwing special-interest groups or the Democrat Party.”
• “The Democrat party platform has become, ”We can’t beat them so let’s try to indict them”.
• “The Democrat Party And The Communist Party Are The Same.”

The term “Democrat Party” is nothing but spin issued upon the direction of Republican Party operatives. There is not now and has never been a “Democrat Party.” The political party’s name is the “Democratic Party.” It’s not a good idea, the Republican bureaucracy has decided, to use the word “Democratic,” because people like Democratic things. Instead, they have issued orders to their followers to use the phrase “Democrat Party” because “Democrat” ends with the sound “rat.”

It’s petty. It’s silly. It’s what happens when you have a Republican-controlled Congress that meets less often than Truman’s Do-Nothing Congress of the 20th Century, and so the pundits and public-relations people supported by the Republican Party bureaucracy have nothing to do but make up new, fake names that end in “rat.”

Of course, it won’t work. It will rebound upon the Republican operatives just like the silly “Freedom Fries” and “Freedom Toast” attempts at re-engineering language rebounded upon them. The attempt to manipulate people with words that end in “rat” will fail because, more than idiotic, counter-productive policy, people just hate it when people in power try to mess with them.

So go ahead, Republican in-crowd schemers. Keep on playing word games like “Democrat Party.” There are few better ways for Americans to peg you as who you are: elitist, snobby, condescending meddlers.