Joe HonickIt used to be that “progressive” implied the widest open capacity for thinking and speaking, not, as is now defined as treachery for a politician who has had the courage and the right to disagree with the President of the United States.

The person on the griddle is none other than the logical Democratic Minority Leader-designate Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and one of the finest people ever to have served his state and the nation.

Why is he called a “traitor” by so called progressive media and groups? Answer: he looked and found the deal with Iran one that he could not support, said so in public and rapidly became the target of a virtually McCarthyistic name-calling assault for his courage and honesty.

It seems Schumer was considered a good guy when he marched in lockstep with whatever President Obama decided and what the progressive media determined it was necessary to do. Thinking for oneself seems not to be sufficient for extremism of both the Left and the Right now that a major challenge to both has arisen.

No doubt, the White House machine is doing round the clock duty to put the pressure on Democrats in Washington to support a deal that has rapidly raised serious questions among people every bit as respectable, decent and honest as those recruited to shout, write and claim their own support of the nuclear agreement Iran and the western powers.

The purpose of this commentary is neither to endorse nor detract from the deal. It is, however, to demand some review not only of the “labeling” methodology of extremists who support the deal. If they wish to set themselves and the President up as icons of propriety and peace, it is their right…but when they diminish and verbally deface the same rights for those who see things differently, honestly demands they would seem to be obligated to erase the word progressive to identify their category of media and movement.

The same always held true for the hypocrisy of the extreme right-wing that often smeared opponents as joining the ranks of communism, socialism and worse. What is not expected in a democracy like the US is demonizing those who disagree with the nation’s commander- in-chief, especially when many who see things differently on the deal with Iran as new means for financing the murderous regime of Basher al Assad of Syria, where more than 250,000 innocent men, women and children have been killed, a reported million or more driven into desperate exile and untold thousands who remain in the country starving.

Whatever ultimately winds up after all the Congressional colloquy and Presidential pressuring, the results cannot erase the means by which free-thinking opponents have been impugned for exercising their ability and right to disagree….and what such insults will have said clearly to those in other nations where the right to think and speak in opposition to rulers of the states is tantamount to real treason….often severely punishable.

Because of these serious realities, it would seem those who lay claim to being progressive should step back from this kind of behavior and the rights of free thinking citizens supported by none other than the President, no matter where the chips may fall.

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Joe Honick is president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island, Wash.