When someone gets really frustrated with me, and tries to dismiss me, there's a Magic Word that sums up their feelings, isolates me, and identifies me to the like-minded.

Works like a charm.

It's the "C-bomb."

Communist.

When conservatives get frustrated, they always pull it out. Often when it's irrelevant. Like when I'm urging the wholesaling of broadband capacity to reach new markets. Or effective anti-trust enforcement. Or even progressive taxation.

Communist isn't just an expletive, however. It's like a dog spray on a tree. It identifies you to the next dog. It lets all the dogs add you to the list, like that C-word that dogs "use" -- cat.

Of course it's a lie. Howard Dean is not a Communist. Hillary Clinton is not a Communist. God knows I'm no Communist. Those who are using the word wouldn't know a real Communist if they found one.

But by using this Magic Word in this magic way, all my arguments can be made to magically disappear.

The word has another impact. When American liberals get a C-bomb dropped on them, they frequently grow angry, almost apoplectic. Their own ability to argue coherently disappears. Which just feeds the stereotype.

By quietly dropping a C-bomb on people, conservatives can be made to rally around just about anyone, and support just about anything. The magic works both ways, on both sides.

It's been this way since Communism was a real force in the world. It's been this way since the Nixon era, in fact it's been this way since Nixon himself was dropping C-bombs as a young Congressman in the 1940s. The people he dropped these C-bombs on weren't Communist, but it worked. And McCarthy only went down because he used the magic too often, too loudly. The Magic Word, and its magic uses, never really disappeared. It just went quiet.

But listen to the right and you'll still hear the C-bomb dropped on John Kennedy, on Lyndon Johnson, on Earl Warren, and on Dr. King. You'll hear it dropped on Jimmy Carter, on Edward Kennedy, and on both Clintons.

Why does it still work? It's a code word that has lost its meaning. But it hasn't, not to those who use it.

And it still has power, because it reminds liberals that he-who-must-not-be-named used the same Magic Word, over and over again, against his enemies, back in Germany.

Why did the people follow him? They were afraid of the Magic Word, and those it was placed on. History claims that Jew was the Magic Word, but the Holocaust didn't just kill Jews. It killed gays, and Catholics, and gypsies, and liberals, anyone who could be tarred with the Magic Word could be carted off, and in the end that meant just about anyone.

Personally I think it's time to bury the Magic Word. The way to do that is to simply stand up to it, to laugh when it's used, and to ridicule all who use it. Tell the Magic Word Khattam-Shud and its power will be gone.

This only works if we all do it.

Try it today.

Have a good laugh.