I try to avoid these sorts of political ramblings, but sometimes it just becomes unbearable–the sin of silence, we call it, during Yom Kippur. It is marginally related to media criticism, so spot me one here.
The tone has become noticeably conciliatory over at Power Line these days. True, the local detachment of the 42nd Fighting Keyboarders long ago perfected that dulcet melody of false reason, the perfectly balanced timbre of the thoughtful populist who won’t insist, but would appreciate it if, at some time in the future, when it’s convenient, of course, their traitorous liberal friends stopped beating their wives. (Anti-war activism is ipso facto anti-Americanism; intelligent design is a “controversy among scientists;” Bush didn’t, y’know, cause Katrina or Rita, are you stoopid?)
They are too clever by half. The nation’s number one bloggers probably see the writing on the wall, and do not wish to be splattered by the manure lagoon presently being emptied on the heads of their party. Despite the brilliant repartee over there, particularly when it comes to legal issues and to Israel, they tend to avoid stories that aren’t amendable to their worldview. Thus begins the prelude to a long, long period of commentary from the trenches of a party that has willed itself into permanent minority status. Watch how in about one year dissent will suddenly become a virtue again.
Today, though, they could not help themselves from lapdogging for Tom DeLay, which might be a mistake (as Republicans are saying to themselves everywhere, I suppose.) I don’t have a lot to add to this, other than to say that media outlets that stick strictly to the facts–House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been indicted on a single felonious count of conspiracy, period–get merits, and those who waste a lot of ink on DeLay’s public excuses, whining, and ad hominem get demerits. I used to wonder why it was so important to all Republicans at all times to rush to the defense of each other, to argue the facts and the media long after the spin cycle is over and done and the public has made up its mind and moved on. (Sheesh, some of them STILL argue not just about Blanco and Nagin, but Vietnam and Richard Nixon. Guys, your team lost one or two or three. No one ever accused Republicans of being good sports, and there’s nothing worse than a sore winner.) But one technical point in the flap about DeLay: What I cannot understand is how the most brilliant, idle legal minds of their generation seem to willfully ignore the fact that it is not just DA Ronnie Earle who has indicted their idol, it is a Texas grand jury. I know these love-the-company-of-men bloggers are smart, and they’re underemployed lawyers and all that, but I suspect that grand jury down in Texas knows a thing or two about the law and the facts in this case. If they can’t argue the point intelligently, then one would really expect Power Line to more graciously fall into lockstep with the Grand Poobah, President Bush, when he says hold your tongue and let the legal process take its course. Trust, people! Gotta work on that–you could start by trusting your Commander in Chief, at least on this point.
In the Times yesterday, David Brooks mused on this form of groupthink, and formulated his own sort of lukewarm apology for Tom “The Hammer” DeLay. Brooks said,
“He’s actually a modest, decent and considerate man. But he is willing to sacrifice all else for the team.”
Now, one could certainly argue that, in private, Tom DeLay is the Great Pumpkin. But there is one thing that is exactly wrong about Brooks’s statement. There is one thing DeLay won’t sacrifice–himself. And “the team” may well suffer for it. Here is why: Like so many of his colleagues, DeLay has become expert at weaponizing language (you know, the whole “framing” thing–brazen profiteering and selfishness, pronounced “tax relief”). But the one argument he is never going to win no matter how he frames it is that someone attacking him is doing so for strictly partisan reasons. No one will ever take seriously a man who has made an uninterrupted career of putting his party before all else, including the welfare of Americans. (His PAC, Texans for a Republican Majority–the name says it all. Priorities!) To charge the Texas grand jury and DA with partisanship strains credulity and patience, and the Gods are getting angry. You know, pride–fall–and so on. Americans do not longer want to hear what the pot thinks of the kettle.
I do love how David Brooks pulls his punches, only to make a below-the-belt grab. DeLay’s “team loyalty” is a misguided virtue; when Democrats indulge in it, it is “deaniac hyperpartisanship.” This is classic, fuzzy-logic Brooks. The intense partisanship that resulted in the impeachment of a president for getting his stuff puffed in the Oval Office, followed by six years of ruthless hubris and violence–that was all well and good, but that time is past. The rules have changed. Lefties who want a piece of that action are exhibiting a dysfunctional “need to rigidly hew to orthodoxy.” This is self-evident heresy when it is conducted by the wrong party.
As I’ve grown fond of saying, there aren’t a lot of deathbed conversions of liberals who wished they’d been more selfish, less sympathetic, who wished they’d spent more time saving money and hating the less fortunate and arguing for war and the elimination of social supports and building the federal deficit and devaluing the dollar and erasing the nation’s diplomatic credibility.
The only person I can think of like that is Sen. Norm Coleman.
