Character Assassination Nation, Brought to You by Obama and Co.

We now return to Barack Obama’s America – the election edition. It’s not the “bipartisan,” “post-racial” place he promised. Thanks to the left and their media flunkies, it’s Character Assassination Nation.

Yes, politics in America has always been a blood sport. You can’t say otherwise for a nation founded in rebellion and that survived a civil war, violence in Congress, duels and who knows what else. It’s not about the daily stupidity that infects all of our lives either. Not the casual comment from top Democrats calling a female GOP gubernatorial candidate a “whore” or left and right shooting from the lip on live radio.

It could be you are running as a woman vice presidential candidate for a party criticized by the media as not inclusive. Instead of celebrating that move, journalists parrot lefty talking points calling you “a problem” or even “embarrassing.”

Or maybe your incredibly successful company gets summoned in front of Congress by a whack-a-doodle politico because he is upset that you fund “angry radio hosts.” (In other words, “angry” hosts who are on the other side.) Perhaps you are targeted as a wealthy “hypocrite,” who has a “sprawling,” spacious,” or “exclusive” estate. As if no one on the left – Gates, Buffet, Soros, et al – have such indelicate living arrangements.

This is the left’s planned, organized and concerted effort to destroy their opponents – working hand-in-hand from liberal media, to politicians to old school media. The goal is nothing short of terrorizing anyone who might disagree with them. When liberals conspired using Journolist to set a news agenda, it was obvious they had done so. This is more insidious and goes all the way to the top.

Pick a name that has been a genuine threat to Team Obama and you can usually find the same strategy. Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, CNBC’s Rick Santelli and Jim Cramer, Matt Drudge, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, billionaire funders Charles and David Koch and even former CNN host Lou Dobbs. While the attacks are reminiscent of the assault against Justice Clarence Thomas, that was amateur hour. This is a professional operation.

The Palin attacks epitomized the strategy and continue to do so even though she hasn’t declared for any office and isn’t running this year at all. The left and the mainstream press savaged her because she was a conservative woman calling herself a “feminist.” They went after her career, her state and her family. In one memorably appalling episode the rumor circulated that Palin’s son Trig was actually her daughter’s child.

Writing in the American Spectator in November 2008, James Taranto said the “crackpot story originated on the Angry Left website DailyKos.com.” From there is spread around the web and to the Atlantic. The kookier the website, the more ridiculous the headline. One such crazy outlet ran this: “We're going with the rumor: Sarah Palin is not Trig's mother.”

It went far enough that Palin had to respond, complaining “it took days for that false allegation to ever be corrected.” Details magazine, the National Enquirer, Gawker.com and others mentioned the story. Once Palin was forced to respond, other media outlets naturally covered it.

Palin was given the Internet version of the classic trap question: “Have you stopped beating your wife?” No matter which choice she took – ignore or respond – the left won.

Today those appalling attacks are part and parcel to the lefty war plan. The typical targeting has one of the bogus liberal sites like HuffingtonPost.com or TheNation.com write something similar to journalism. It then gets picked up and commented on either by the clowns at MSNBC or some marginal left-wing politician like Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y. Or even the president of the United States who complained about so-called “foreign money” being spent on the election when he knew the claim was bogus.

Now it’s perfect. Lefty politicians have turned a complete non-story into a reaction story. In one of the laughers of modern spin, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs complained about how other groups are manipulating the political process. “Our democracy is threatened by the fact that big groups and big interests can come in and anonymously attack those that they disagree with,” he told USA Today.

So, nonprofits that don’t want to reveal their donors are bad, but government working hand-in-hand with media outlets to skewer the opposition is OK?

When the left went gunning for the Kochs, they jumped right to quasi-legit news outlets. First New York magazine chimed in on July 25. But calling David Koch “the tea party’s wallet” wasn’t nasty enough. The New Yorker followed a month later with “The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.” That spammed throughout the web as the liberal machine regurgitated the whole mess like Roman diners at a vomitorium.

Victims don’t even have to be involved in the process to earn a beat-down. The Nation went on a year-long jihad against former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs to claim he’s: “Lou Dobbs, American Hypocrite.” This sleazy little hit job went after Dobbs because he opposes the open-borders solution to immigration. With all of her work, the lame Isabel Macdonald could only muster rumor and innuendo. One illegal was quoted as saying Dobbs’ daughter might have known the worker was in the U.S. illegally. “I believe she knew." That’s it. A nationwide journalism feeding frenzy based on “I believe.”

And why did they go after Dobbs? Not for 2010. The left has already lost this election as clearly as they did in 1994. This time they are trying to destroy potential candidates for the future and, as The Nation explained, “he has not ruled out a possible Senate or even presidential run in 2012.”

In 2010, even the thought crime of considering candidacy puts a target on your back.

Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and the MediaResearchCenter’s Vice President for Business and Culture. His column appears each week on The Fox Forum. He can also be contacted on FaceBook and Twitter as dangainor.