Democrats need look no further. Their four-month search for a
viable corporate strategy can come to end. They now have the
National Hockey League to emulate. A season on the brink has become
a season canceled. The NHL’s finest have taken their skills abroad,
particularly to the former Soviet Union where professional hockey’s
Arctic and Tundra divisions report constant shortages of
warm-blooded skating talent. Democrats could do their part by
shoring up Russia’s democratic lines. Wouldn’t Nancy Pelosi look
cute in fur? Harry Reid as an icebox vendor? Comrade Hillary as
league commissar? Let’s all go with them.
On second thought, let’s make sure Temple’s basketball Trotsky,
John Chaney, isn’t sentenced to join them, an object lesson in
Crime and Punishment. Last year he flirted with treason as he
joined forces with a group called “Coaches for Kerry.” Flames
flared from his nostrils when he spoke about President Bush. As one
report put it, “‘I hope and pray that Sen. Kerry just crushes this
guy,’ he boomed, ‘and I’ll do anything possible to help assure that
it happens.’” When John Kerry proved an inadequate enforcer, Chaney
turned to one of his own “goons.” With Bush nowhere in sight,
Chaney’s stooge did everything possible to crush opposing players
as if they were getting out the vote for the GOP. One of them ended
up with a broken arm, his career over. Chaney has been suspended
and may be forced to resign. A plea bargain might land him in
Siberia, though he really should be running the Coaches for Kerry
Clinic at Guantanamo Bay.
Ronald Reagan’s star continues to rise beyond infinity. Time was
when the powers that be would ridicule his every utterance. They
especially slapped knees whenever they heard him refer to
Bolshevism’s St. Vladimir contemptuously as “Nikolai” Lenin. A 1983
New York Times story, for instance, corrected Reagan by
turning to Dr. Robert Allen, area specialist for Russia and the
Soviet Union at the Library of Congress, for confirmation that
Lenin’s first name was indeed Vladimir. But that was then. Now
comes the Washington Post, reporting on the effort of
conservative bolsheviks to storm Social Security’s winter palace, a
move reporter Jeffrey Birnbaum writes is modeled on “Nikolai Lenin’s effort to
undermine capitalism.” Log in to MediaMatters.org as it chides Mr.
Birnbaum and the Post for succumbing to a Reaganite
bias.
Dana Milbank is another Postie having trouble keeping
his factoids straight. On Sunday he noted that USA Next’s fabulous and friendly AARP
ad ran on “the American Spectator’s Website for a few minutes last
week…” A few minutes? Heck, Enemy Central alone spent the
better part of four days ogling the photograph at the heart of
recent discussion. Then, again, time flies when you’re sharing
bliss.
More disturbing is that progressive forces in our midst found
themselves deeply troubled by a photograph depicting two elegantly
dressed men at a wedding. Is it fair to expect nuptials to be
restricted exclusively to women? It would appear that these same
forces are still paying the price for the job they did on the
inventive Jeff Gannon. On finding that he may be many of the things
they are, they John Chaneyed him. Certainly they knew exactly where
to look. But Gannon’s not one to go on any disabled list. Already
he’s announced that he intends to appear at the White House
Correspondents’ Dinner, which otherwise is wanting for star
attractions this year, unless Dana Milbank is your cup of tea.
We’re hoping he’s good sport enough to jump out of a cake at Barney
Frank’s next birthday bash.
Barney Frank, the hero of Davos, deserves to be feted for saving
the world from Eason Jordan. And thus from David Gergen, who would
empty a Correspondents’ Dinner faster than a fire marshal. Jordan
can only be described as a fool, falling in love with one Sharon
Stone just as she decides she’s at a point in her life at which
women might be more attractive. But Gergen is something else
entirely. He’s been oozing sycophancy on behalf of privilege since
at least the reign of Louis XVI, finding time eventually to put in
a good word for Robespierre while serving as Talleyrand’s gofer.
But whereas the last survived purely to give cynicism a place at
the table, Gergen always does so in the name of morality. So at
Davos he famously suggested Mr. Jordan had “walked himself back”
from the poison he’d planted, as if dropping the big one were the
equivalent of tossing a water-filled balloon.
Needless to say, Gergen’s intervention was about successful as
Putin’s in Ukraine. Undeterred, he returned to the U.S. in time to
inject himself into the Harvard wars, this time with a call of
unpalatable advice to its Jeff Gannon, one Lawrence Summers. A
leading critic of Summers had said she had to leave the room on
hearing what he’d said, lest she threw up. Thanks to EOW Dave
Gergen, we know the feeling.
