The American Spectator

Here’s is Gold’s definition of gender gap: “Liberal media conundrum first posed by a bored desk editor at the Sacramento Bee, circa 1980, viz. (1) the inability of the Republican Party to get wives to vote like their husbands; (2) the inability of the Democratic Party to get husbands to vote like their wives.”

And here’s why it matters: Reporters often thrust microphones and tape recorders at members of the GOP running for office and pepper them with questions about why, according to polls, the Republican is trailing Democrat candidate X in a race for the women’s vote. But I’ve never heard a reporter pull the opposite trick: ask the Democrat why he is doing so lousy with the men.

As a result, the votes of women are assigned grand metaphysical importance. Rather than attempt to make up for a small deficit of female voters by appealing to more men, Republicans try to smile more, talk often about education, and describe their policies as compassionate-in other words, they try to out Kennedy the Democrats.

Much of Gold’s shtick is predictable but probably worth saying. We may know that Peter Jennings will refer to left-wingers who take their grievances to the streets as “alienated” and right-wingers who do the same as an “angry mob,” but it’s worth reminding ourselves of this now and again.

Liberwocky really gets interesting when Gold departs from the well-trod trail of conservative media criticism and hike his skepticism up to altitudes where the air gets thin. In a five-page essay titled “SPIN-DOCTORING HISTORY,” the author expounds on his theory that the “Judgment of History” is, in fact, a “factitious verdict handed down by a stacked jury of Liberal revisionists bent on redeeming the reputation of failed Democratic presidents.”

For evidence, we call to the stand the presidencies of Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman. Because of foreign policy blunders, personal prickliness, and domestic antipathy to civil liberties, both left the White House under a dark cloud of voter disapproval. However, “by the time the Liberal revisionists had cosmetized the record, all that remained was the myth of Saint Woodrow and the legend of Give-‘em-Hell-Harry.” Undaunted, Gold takes out a can of makeup remover and goes to work.