There is a tiresome trend evolving in some corners of the media, namely the hypocritical denunciation of Republicans by left-of-center commentators, based on the limited information intake they allow themselves outside of TV, NPR, the New York Times, etc.
Generally speaking, these are the same folks who gleefully took easy potshots in recent months at Republicans for losing their fiscal conservative moorings in DC. A fair criticism, but what do these same commentators do when Republicans rally and express that disdain for excess spending via a bloated "stimulus" of highly questionable job-creation value?
They criticize that too.
Locally, we have the less than charming offerings of Lance Dickie and Joel Connelly exemplifying the hypocrisy. The former has long been arguing with a straw-man of the GOP, to the point that his commentary on the topic has a near Onion-like quality. The latter seems very upset with his personal aversion to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and not-so-nice emailers (newsflash: write political opinion online of any persuasion and you just might get some nasty rejoinders via email and the comments). Connelly construes his interactions as representing the GOP writ large, declaring the right to be increasingly "bitter, elderly and male."
Things I can tell you: Joel isn't talking to rank-and-file Republicans. Joel isn't talking to conservative activists. Joel isn't interacting with the right-of-center on Facebook. Joel sure isn't observing the rapidly evolving conservative activity on Twitter. The energy on the right today is forward looking, upbeat, and issues focused (see Eric Cantor, Michael Steele, Mitt Romney, the folks behind Rebuild the Party, etc., etc.). You wouldn't know that from the cocoons in which Dickie and Connelly sit.
Indeed, it's tough to see a Republican response to Obama - besides rolling over and voting "yes" at the call of the One - that would appease such ideologically elastic critics. Did Democrats play ball with W's domestic agenda prior to 9/11? Not exactly. Did they even attempt to have serious debate about Social Security after his decisive re-election? Not by a long shot.
Jonah Goldberg has some more interesting thoughts on the laments of the left worth reading. Why? Because the eleven House Democrats joining Republicans in opposing the stimulus and potential trouble awaiting the legislation in the Senate forebear an interesting point.
In the wake of 1994, too many conservatives presumed the nation embraced their agenda in full, rather than understanding that their triumphal victory was more a product of Bill Clinton's disastrous first two years in the Oval Office than anything else. After 2008, too many on the left are poised to make the same mistake. America voted last November against the fumbles - both real and perceived - of George W. Bush. Those independent-minded dwellers of suburbs and exurbs in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia could give a damn about the wishes of the progressive movement. They were, quite bluntly, really pissed off about years of bad news in Iraq, the Katrina disaster live in their living room, and an economy exploding all over the nightly news just as they were tuning in to the Presidential race.
That's the real lay of the land in our political culture...once you get past the earnest biases of secluded, anti-GOP voices in the MSM.
UPDATE: Perspective on the stimulus from David Brooks, a very moderate voice in the right-of-center universe:
In a fateful decision, Democratic leaders merged the temporary stimulus measure with their permanent domestic agenda -- including big increases for Pell Grants, alternative energy subsidies and health and entitlement spending. The resulting package is part temporary and part permanent, part timely and part untimely, part targeted and part untargeted.It's easy to see why Democrats decided to do this. They could rush through permanent policies they believe in. Plus, they could pay for them with borrowed money. By putting a little of everything in the stimulus package, they avoid the pay-as-you-go rules that might otherwise apply to recurring costs.
But they've created a sprawling, undisciplined smorgasbord, which has spun off a series of unintended consequences. First, by trying to do everything all it once, the bill does nothing well. The money spent on long-term domestic programs means there may not be enough to jolt the economy now (about $290 billion in spending is pushed off into 2011 and later). The money spent on stimulus, meanwhile, means there's not enough to truly reform domestic programs like health technology, schools and infrastructure. The measure mostly pumps more money into old arrangements.
That constitutes some very good reasoning for casting a "no" vote on the "stimulus" in current form.
Posted by Eric Earling at January 31, 2009 01:13 PM | Email ThisMr. Earling, you've left something out. The 'real' and 'perceived' fumbles only got to the attention of American public via the medium of the MSM.
The public had no way to gain substantial knowlege of items which were omitted by those reports, such as the obvious improvements in Iraq which the MSM buried until it could no longer cover it up with daily US casualty human-interest stories.
Or other omitted items, such as the direct responsibility for the subprime crash, which would not - could not have occurred without the malfeasance of the Fannie and Freddie administrators, and without the government-mandated lending to unqualifiable borrowers after the 1995 metastization of the Community Reinvestment Act.
No, the MSM has acted since about 2002 as an arm of the Democratic Party, bringing us a relentless negative campaign against the Bush Administration. Also bringing us since 2004 a relentless promotional campaign for one B.H. Obama, whom they could not praise enough, nor lift a finger to do any due diligence whatever on his murky Chicago background.
The late election was a wholly reactionary exercise by the public to exorcise the hideous cartoon of Bush and the Republicans which successfully dominated the news for years.
Your observations of the continuance of that demonizing in the local press are spot on. But it's only a small part of the larger permanent campaign by a media wholly owned by the Left.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on January 31, 2009 02:31 PMAnd as things get worse around the world, the level of disconnect from reality by the Obamaniacs in the left-wing press may eventually reach a point where it's just not gonna sell anymore..... well, at least not to anybody who is not fully in deep-space orbit with moveon.org and their fellow-travelers.
Perhaps a bit of a SIDEBAR to this thread, but since it seems likely to be a noticeable factor in how long it takes our economy to recover:
RCP linked to a long piece in Spiegel Online that I thought was very interesting (and sobering):
Can Countries Really Go Bankrupt
Sounds like much if not most of Europe is in as bad or worse shape than we are:
Iceland is effectively bankrupt; Ireland and Greece are not far behind; the UK is in big trouble (London = major European financial center); several other countries in more-or-less the same trouble.
I told the call screener that I had heard on FOX news that it was 100K per person (I could have heard that wrong) and the call screener abruptly stated, "well, that's what you get for watching FOX!"
I turned it right back on him, saying, "I am indeed a conservative, I do NOT watch CNN and Rush has far too many callers to get thru.. so I tried this Henry guy and got thru on my first try."
That hopefully put him in his place that not all CNN watchers are leftie moonbats.
Posted by: Ann on January 31, 2009 08:08 PM"Bush hatred and Obama euphoria are particularly toxic because they thrive in and have been promoted by the news media, whose professional responsibility, it has long been thought, is to gather the facts and analyze their significance, and by the academy, whose scholarly training, it is commonly assumed, reflects an aptitude for and dedication to systematic study and impartial inquiry.From the avalanche of vehement and ignorant attacks on Bush v. Gore and the oft-made and oft-refuted allegation that the Bush administration lied about WMD in Iraq, to the remarkable lack of interest in Mr. Obama's career in Illinois politics and the determined indifference to his wrongness about the surge, wide swaths of the media and the academy have concentrated on stoking passions rather than appealing to reason."
And here is the whole thing:
Bush Hatred and Obama Euphoria Two Sides of Same Coin
This is the type of thinking and lack of basis in reality that has many moderates and independents laughing at the republican party.
At the end of Clinton's term he had an approval rating far higher than Bush: 68% versus 20-22%.
Bush "hatred" is due to the incompetence and lying. I don't hate Bush - I just think he was the worst President ever. The polls back me up - Bush had the lowest ever approval ratings - less than Nixon after Watergate at 19% 2007.
Presidents who lie, torture and contribute the worst economy since the great depression tend to have lousy approval ratings.
Bush was an incumbent President during a time of war - yet he did not beat Kerry by that much. Bush lost the popular vote and barely won the election (due to Ralph Nader)in 2000. He claimed to be a uniter not a divider - and he was right. He united the nation against him and his republican policies.
Posted by: correctnotright on February 2, 2009 07:25 AMApproval rating is not the be-all end-all measure of success. Tell me, what SPECIFICALLY did Clinton do to make a great economy? What SPECIFICALLY did Bush do to tank the current economy?
If the media had been rah-rah-rah about the war, Bush's approval rating would have been much higher. If the media had been fair about Katrina, his approval rating woudl have been much higher.
Bush lied? What was the lie? Bush tortured? You mean waterboarding? I'd rather be water boarded that stuck in federal prison. That tells me waterboarding isn't torture. By comparing waterboarding to getting your fingers smashed with a hammer repeatedly shows how moronic and flawed your logic is.
Posted by: Doug on February 2, 2009 04:46 PM