Preparing the battlefield

The Washington Post actually criticizes a Democrat:

[House Speaker] Pelosi deserves no praise for her leadership on Monday.  Even stipulating that we are in the closing weeks of one of the most important political campaigns in a generation, her inability to rise above the tendency to score political points was inexcusable.  Monday’s vote was a moment to set aside those instincts and talk about the package as an example of Washington’s ability to work cooperatively in a time of crisis.

Instead, Pelosi accused Bush of economic policies that create “budgetary recklessness” and “an anything-goes mentality.”  And she closed with a partisan call to arms.  “In the new year, with a new Congress and a new president,” she said, “we will break free with a failed past and take America in a new direction to a better future.”

And Glenn Reynolds notes

Strikingly, these criticisms come from The Washington Post, not some right-leaning publication.

Well, before we celebrate the Post’s sudden attack of bi-partisanship, let’s engage in a little Kremlinology.  When the Official Democrat Media prints something counter to expectations, the reason must lie beyond the obvious. Let’s look past the surface to find the story-behind-the-story.

First off, on reading the entire piece, it’s immediately evident that it’s not as radically deviant as the anti-Pelosi quote, taken in isolation, would imply. After a single-sentence paragraph to set the scene, writer Dan Balz spends 10 paragraphs (582 words) wailing on – wait for it! – the Republicans.  From the ineffectiveness of President Bush, to the “ideology” of the House Republicans (“crucial in any decision” says an unnamed “veteran of a past Republican administration”), to the “disarray” of the Republican party in general (“leaderless and lacking in cohesion”), to John McCain (“raised more questions about his own style of leadership”), etcetera, etcetera: The list is long, and no stone is left unthrown.  It goes on and on, paragraph after paragraph, winding up with a couple of extracts from former-Bushie Peter Wehner’s NRO Corner post (“foolish and irresponsible” “lame and adolescent”).  Then, finally, Balz is ready to tackle the Democrats.

If anyone’s keeping statistics, they get four paragraphs.

Now, Pelosi’s speech was out of line.  In fact, it was so far out of line with what any reasonable person would have expected from the Speaker of the House that failure to acknowledge it would have left Balz tiptoeing past an elephant the size of China.  So he does, but in curiously muted terms.  Pelosi showed an “inability to rise above the tendency to score political points.”  The strongest language (fairly) characterizes the speech’s conclusion as “a partisan call to arms.”  Oh, and there’s a wrist-slap for Harry Reid, too: “[Reid has] sounded grudging in his comments about the Democrats’ willingness to participate in finding a solution to a problem that he argues is wholly the fault of Bush and the Republicans.”  “Grudging,” huh?  Like he was just having a bad day?  Certainly nothing ideological there!

Having come this far, the question remains: What’s this all about?  The answer lies in the piece’s final paragraph:

...Anger at Washington will feed a hunger for change, and it's likely to fall harder on the GOP as the party that holds the White House.  But for the next president and the next Congress, whatever its makeup, Monday’s performance should be looked at as an example of what it was, a performance designed to undermine the public’s confidence in its elected leadership.

As he dog-whistles the “change” slogan, Balz issues a warning: Any Republican (or Democrat, for that matter) who fails to go along with the next (i.e., Obama) adminstration’s program of Hopeful Changitude (or is it “Changeful Hopeitude”?) will be condemned by the press as “ideological,” or â€œundermining the public’s confidence,” or “not by any means representative of a governing majority in the country,” or (if they’re feeling generous) “partisan.”  The press will uphold its side, sincerity and principle will be granted only to the anointed, and all others be warned..

Of course, we already knew that.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 16:00:16 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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