Liberals and Democrats are increasingly adopting the popular post-9/11 tactic of comparing their political opponents to terrorists and murderous regimes. The latest examples come from SEIU president Andy Stern, MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews, and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga.

First, via CNSNews.com, Stern referred to Democratic senators who aren’t supportive of labor’s policy priorities as “terrorists”:

Stern criticized Senators Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, who have stalled legislative action with their objections.

“There are a lot of terrorists in the Senate who think we are supposed to negotiate with them when they have their particular needs that they want met,” Stern said.

Similarly, Matthews joined Josh Marshall and Frank Rich in comparing Republicans to the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia:

What’s going on out there in the Republican Party is kind of a frightening, almost Cambodia re-education camp going on in that party, where they’re going around to people, sort of switching their minds around saying, if you’re not far right, you’re not right enough.

Finally, Kos engaged in a similar smear in which he likened Republicans to the Taliban, a comparison that is apparently going to be the subject of an entire book:

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world.

The Taliban comparison was coined by former NAACP president Julian Bond in 2001 and quickly came into wide usage, including Senator Tim Johnson, Marshall, Lewis Lapham, Matthews, and Kos. The release of the Kos book will only make things worse.