This is how the bullies' world ends -- with a whimper. It's
really rather sad, the way it always is when it becomes clear that
behind the posturing, meanness, and vile haughtiness stands a
broken collective of lowlifes with nowhere to go, no prospects for
recovery, no chance to regain anyone's respect.
So how many reputable Democrats have come out to rail against
the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court? Let's see: we
have some of the usual residue from the Bork-Thomas era, such as
Ralph Neas and Nan Aron. We have all the creepy MoveOn.org Howard
Dean groupies. Several dispirited pundits and columnists. And of
course the lovely Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, and
last, but not exclusively least, Pat Leahy. You know when he sits
under an apple tree next month reading up on Roberts the tree will
proceed to drop rotten fruit on his inviting pate.
And it wasn't even Karl Rove who did them in. (Don't they wish
they had him to kick around again.) It was instead the political
genius who always does them in at key moments, our fox of a
president, George W. Bush. All day Tuesday he had them sent on wild
goose chases. Then come 9:00 p.m. primetime, he trotted out his
golden swan. Soon they were kicking themselves, as nonviolently as
possible, for permitting Bush free rein, coast to coast, on every
major channel and network out there. But given that they'd turned
the O'Connor retirement into the biggest event since the deaths of
John Lennon, Ronald Reagan, and John Paul II combined, it was only
fitting that Bush rose to the occasion in naming her successor.
The Democrats' minions in the press complain that Bush respects
them less and less. "...I can tell you," Howard Kurtz, the leading
voice of Washington journalism, wrote yesterday, "that some of them are ticked
and feeling misled." I don't imagine whatever it is they feel is
keeping Bush from falling asleep promptly at 10 p.m. The guest list for last Monday's White House gala
dinner for India's prime minister included not a single member of
the mainstream media, other than Bush-friendly conservatives Fred
Barnes and David Brooks, and of course Raghubir Goyal, the White
House correspondent for India Globe and Asia
Today.
Long ago Bush made it clear he regards the Washington press
corps as a special interest whose views don't reflect those of most
Americans. Like my old Irish setter who always was surprised to
find ocean water salty each time we went to the beach, these media
folk still haven't figured out that Bush doesn't fear them -- let
alone regard them in any way his equal. He's tried to signal that
our government comprises three branches only, but they haven't been
very perceptive.
So what do the Democrats and their mouthpieces do now? Lie low?
Buy time? Reconnoiter on Cape Cod? Unless it's a mirror they're
staring at, they're not ones to engage in self-reflection. But
powerlessness and paralysis do have a way of reminding the
afflicted that maybe things aren't going too well. In this case,
that the anti-Bush party is not the governing party, that the
anti-Bush press does not get the first and last word, and that the
United States as a polity is indeed more diverse than they ever
dreamed.
topics:
Mainstream Media, Supreme Court
