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Eminentoes
The Fall of a Journalist
What happened to E.J. Dionne? Dionne, a liberal columnist for the Washington Post and Catholic intellectual, has become a representative of arguably the most serious problem with the left: the refusal to engage arguments from the other side. This leads to arguments that are repetitive, propagandistic, and frequently unmoored from reason and common sense. And in Dionne's case, it didn't have to be this way. He was once one of America's most interesting journalists.
Dionne gained his reputation in 1991, with the publication of his book Why Americans Hate Politics. In it, he dissected American politics since the 1960s, concluding that Americans hated politics because they were offered "false choices" by both the left and the right. Citizens didn't want people to starve, yet recognized that large welfare payments could make people lazy. They wanted abortion to be legal, but with restrictions. Vietnam made them doubt foreign wars, but they retained respect for the military. America was a both/and, not an either/or country.
Reread today, Why Americans Hate Politics still seems fresh, not least because of Dionne's ability to honestly engage the arguments of conservatives -- and to criticize the left. Here he is on the New Left of the 1960s:
Yet as the 1960s went on and the political energies of the New Left focused more and more on cultural issues and the war, the movement began defeating its own purposes. Anger at the American government was transformed into hatred of American society. Avant-garde culture and morality created a gulf between the left and the mass of Americans who favored social reform but lived by a traditional moral code. Thus, when the theory of "participatory democracy" was applied, in an admittedly imperfect way, to the Democratic Party, it ended up concentrating power into the hands of a culturally "advanced" upper middle class. This hardly advanced the cause of democracy, since the upper middle class already had much power in both parties.
Dionne then examines the rise of the neoconservatives, liberals who became disenchanted with the excesses of the New Left and the counterculture. And to Dionne, they often had good cause to be. "The tragedy for liberals is that they had much to learn from the neoconservatives…. In particular, the neoconservatives were right in seeing virtue as a legitimate goal of government policy -- even if they were wrong in using virtue as a battering ram against democracy, which they sometimes did." Furthermore, the neoconservatives "were right in insisting that a democratic system depended on citizens capable of exercising discipline and self-restraint -- even if their fears about the assaults of the New Left and the counterculture on such values were exaggerated." Dionne then ends the chapter with this hammer blow:
Over time, liberals were no longer certain what kind of family was worth encouraging; they feared welfare programs that required recipients to work; they nearly always saw understandable worries about law and order as covert forms of racism; and they came to believe that almost all doctrines emphasizing the value of local community were indistinguishable from the phony "states' rights" argument used by segregationists.
This is not to give the impression that Dionne was a conservative. One of the more salient connections he draws in Why Americans Hate Politics is between the counterculture of the 1960s, with their calls for no restrictions, and the perils of consumer capitalism. While acknowledging that the government made blunders, he defends the Great Society. But through Why Americans Hate Politics his argument remains grounded in reasoned intelligence and common sense -- if not what Catholics like Dionne (and myself) call the natural law (more on that later). It's important to strive to improve society, Dionne concludes, and to use government in a reasonable way towards that end. But human beings are imperfect and utopia not possible.
In Why Americans Hate Politics, Dionne is particularly strong on racial issues. While writing that black rage over centuries of racism was understandable, he defends whites who in the 1960s and '70s were frightened of the pathologies that had taken over the inner cities. In 1988, Republican presidential candidate George Bush toured flag factories and ran ads pointing out that his opponent, Michael Dukakis, had allowed Willie Horton out on a furlough, where he attacked again. Dukakis criticized the Republican campaign of "flag and furloughs," but Dionne was having none of it: ""But 'flags and furloughs' spoke precisely to the doubts that many Americans developed about liberalism from 1968 onward. In the eyes of many of their traditional supporters, liberal Democrats seemed to oppose personal disciplines -- of family and tough law enforcement, or community values and patriotism -- that average citizens, no less than neoconservative intellectuals, saw as essential to holding a society together." Furthermore, "black separatism…encouraged the most subtle kind of racism: the refusal to admit that certain values were color-blind and worth promoting in the ghetto no less than outside."
On abortion, Dionne called for compromise. Most American wanted abortion to be legal, but not in the entire nine months. In Why Americans Hate Politics, Dionne endorsed restriction on late term abortions -- a stance he would not defend in later years.
Over time, Dionne lost the wisdom of his former self. He seemed to have become unhinged during the disputed 2000 election, then bedazzled by Barack Obama. After 2000 and then 2008, Dionne grew more and more unreasonable and more dogmatic -- not to mention lazy. The difference is clear in the 2004 introduction to the reissue of Why Americans Hate Politics. In fact, it's possible to mark Dionne's transformation from level-headed Dr. Jekyll to a demented left-wing Mr. Hyde down to the paragraph. In the introduction, Dionne offers a brisk update of the thirteen years that had elapsed since Why Americans Hate Politics was first published. The summary is mostly sound and lucid. Dionne notes that President Clinton balanced the budget even while raising taxes. Crime fell during his presidency. Al Gore endorsed government assistance to religious charities. Most Americans, while disgusted with President Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal, were against impeachment. And so on.
Then comes the 2000 election. And off come the wheels. When the election result was disputed, "the toughness inside the Republican part (and among allied organizations and political commentators) reemerged." This made things difficult for liberals, because -- hold on -- "Democrats were slow to come to Gore's defense as he demanded recounts that were perfectly typical of very close elections -- and seemed all the more justified in Florida, given the disenfranchisement of so many Democratic voters."
It's like watching a skilled surgeon's hands begin to shake. Suddenly, the Rhodes scholar and Post eminence is churning our facts that simply aren't true. Democrats were anything but slow in backing Al Gore, and the recounts the former vice president asked for were confined to heavily democratic precincts. From there, like some horrible journalistic domino theory, Dionne's integrity begins a rapid collapse. He claims that President Bush, the victor in a close election, blew his mandate to government from the center by cutting taxes for the wealthy. After 9/11, Dionne writes, Bush squandered the opportunity to work with Democrats: "Bush had opposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security when Democrats had proposed it after 9/11. But when questions finally arose over what Bush had done (or failed to do) in the pre 9/11 period, he changed the subject by embracing the Democrats' idea." Worse, "Bush accused the Democrats of being insufficiently tough in their approach to the war on terror." And, of course, there's Iraq: "the administration failed to find the weapons of mass destruction it had insisted Saddam held in abundance."
The old E.J. Dionne, the E.J. Dionne of Why Americans Hate Politics, would never have written those sentences, or been that lazy. Without losing his liberal bona fides, he could have presented the full story: Bush cut taxes, yes -- and the economy boomed. He created the Department of Homeland Security not out of some fear of criticism that he had not done enough to prevent 9/11, but because he wanted to protect the country. President Bush never accused the Democrats of being insufficiently tough in the war on terror -- although after Senate majority leader Harry Reid announced "this war is lost," he would have had cause. He criticized Democrats for voting for the war in Iraq -- a resolution to use force passed handily in the House and Senate -- and then turning against the war when things got tough. Dionne doesn't reveal any of this. The author of Why Americans Hate Politics once cited history books, policy journals, newspapers, intellectuals and regular people, creating a mosaic that was very close to reality. In one part of his books, he quotes a woman in the 1960s who says she is against the Vietnam War -- but that the protestors and professors are even worse. These days Dionne won't even admit that most intelligence organizations in the world, not just the U.S. and Britain, thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
Just as disappointing is Dionne's weakness on race. In 2008 he fell hard for Barack Obama, giving the future president a pass the former he never would have offered Stokely Carmichael and other black radical from the 1960s. In 2008, Dionne delivered a love letter to Obama in the form of an essay in the New Republic. Obama's connection to racist preacher Jeremiah Wright had just broken, bringing Obama what Dionne called "the week from hell." Then Dionne offers this: "Obama surely must feel, at the very least, the bitter irony: Few recent presidential candidates have spent more time wrestling with the politics of religion." The old Dionne would not have seen the irony, either -- because there is none. Obama entered politics as a young man in urban Chicago, a center for black nationalism. The blowback he eventually got from his friendship with Reverend Wright was the simple result of that. There was nothing ironic about it at all. And the old E.J. Dionne would have seen that. Rather than a soporific mash note, he could have published a compelling examination of the failures of the Black Power movement -- and how whites were right to reject it. When professor Skip Gates of Harvard was arrested by a white police officer for being disorderly, causing a national debate, Dionne called for an end to "racial score-settling." The old E.J. would have had the guts to call Professor Gates out on his Black Power resentment. He would have passed a judgment.
A couple years ago, Dionne was on television debating conservative Tucker Carlson. Abortion came up, and Dionne argued that most Americans were for keeping it legal. Yes, Carlson, said -- but with no restrictions? Dionne sat there silently, and Carlson pushed: None? He repeated. No restrictions at all? Dionne sat, waiting for the moderator to change the subject.
In the journey from journalist to dogmatist, Dionne has become a shrill and predictable writer. He has traded the integrity of the investigative journalist and intellectual for the frisson of the propagandist. This is especially dispiriting because Dionne is a Catholic. What has made writing by Catholics from G.K. Chesterton to Anne Rice so compelling is the tension between reason and political correctness, between the natural law and modernism. The natural law, Catholics believe, is the law that the conscience dictates -- the law that tells everyone, regardless of who they are or where they live, that rape and murder are intrinsically evil. According to St. Ambrose, who is quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the conscience is "God's herald and messenger," guiding human beings about right and wrong. And while the conscience is a proper guide, Catholics also believe that it also needs to be developed; this is done by adhering to the Gospels and the teachings of the Church. Catholics further believe that God has revealed himself through human reason. In Dionne's early writing this tension was evident, and made for compelling reading. A good liberal, he was willing to call America on racism, excessive capitalism, and anti-government zealotry. A reasonable man and faithful Catholic, he was equally able to challenge the left on reverse racism, condescension towards working class whites, and abortion fanaticism. Now he's just another hack.
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JAWilson| 9.4.09 @ 7:17AM
I dunno. I have always had a problem with EJ's predictable leftism and antagonism to conservative viewpoints. Then I google him and find that he's also a Harvard puke. He was always a leftist in my opinion, just a better liar back in the day.
Steve| 9.4.09 @ 8:15AM
When the fact are on your side, argue the facts; when the law is on your side, argue the law; when you lack both the facts and the law, simply pound the table.
Like all leftists, EJ has run out of facts and law. Now he simply pounds the table. The ultimate destination of all leftist "intellectuals" is completely predictable.
P. Aaron| 9.4.09 @ 8:16AM
Because liberalism, once striving to be a conscience of liberty has transfomred its premise on a quest for unmitigated POWER over those now living with liberty.
Liberalism has chosen not to defend liberty but instead to define it...rather than shape & define the government assigned to preserve those liberties.
Bram| 9.4.09 @ 9:04AM
He must have lost all intellectual honesty and curiosity before my time. I have only seen him as a smarmy party-line liberal talking head.
Curly Smith| 9.4.09 @ 9:19AM
"Over time, Dionne lost the wisdom of his former self."
I think it's a lot simpler than the article suggests. It all boils down to "Clinton Won".
Think about Dionne's history: he was born in 1952; he got to see the glamour of Camelot via the media prism; he saw the unraveling of society as a college student in the late 60's; he saw the disastrous implementation by Nixon of one of the left's favorite tools, Wage and Price Controls; he experienced the disaster that was Jimmy Carter; and he lived the Reagan years where Conservative Principles brought the country back from the brink of economic ruin, restored some measure of personal responsibility and ended the Cold War thus bringing freedom to millions of former slaves of leftist governments. He saw the misery that leftist ideologues inflicted on the world with nary a complaint from the left-leaning media and said "that's not the way to hold true to our principles!".
Then he joined the Washington Post, then Clinton won, and Dionne because the useless hack that he is today. He forgot all that he learned in his quest for adulation from the intelligentsia. No matter that they're destroying the people that he claims to care about, what matters is that people he doesn't know say that "E.J. Dionne is smart, he's one of us". In spite of Dionne's history, a history that demonstrates the failure of leftist politics, the overarching concern for E.J. Dionne is advancing the left's agenda.
Bok| 9.4.09 @ 9:46AM
Is it just me or is the Spectator evolving into a Catholic political journal? I'm about as evangelical as you can get and like to think of myself as tolerant. I am probably nitpicking too but like other evangelicals that post here have pointed out, there is a growing theme of Catholic centric thinking that is becoming more and more prevalent in the writings, and sometimes offensive in its omission of where credit is due. In this particular piece, it is understandable because the target is supposedly Catholic, but hey! Throw the "separated bretheren" a bone every now and then by refereincing the influence of the Reformation brought here by the Puritans and carried through to the Founding Fathers that shaped the definition of our liberties so pervasively cataloged in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. To hear some of these guys tell it, you'd think it was only through the influence of the Rome and the Pope himself that any concept of natural law has anything to do with how we govern ourselves.
Michael L. Hauschild| 9.4.09 @ 10:01AM
Few will argue that mainstream societal influences produce, with age, a swing to conservatism. The “follies of youth” for most actually exist. Anomalies to this “learned behavior” exist but predominantly fall within the ranks of the MSM.
I suggest the behavior exhibited with some such as Dionne is also environmental but due to his being “compartmental.” If you move into the sanitarium soon you will begin to behave accordingly. Every single aspect of his existence is steeped in the vector/reward school of journalism. “Peers” (bosses and cohorts) are equally indoctrinated in leftist dogma and reinforce the destructive spiral away from rationality. Once this “stage” is triggered (for him the 2000 election?) debate is not possible because the mindset of his byline exists, not as argument and discussion, but only by degree of perceived injustice. Questioning his position becomes “profiling,” his debaters are relegated to “agents of an insurrection,” and the arena of discussion becomes “Astroturf.”
Luckily his influence is directly proportional to the circulation statistics of his media. He simply is no longer viable and probably has fewer readerships than a Marxist footnote in the “Audacity of Hope.”
james wilson| 9.4.09 @ 10:04AM
Liberalism is so destructive that when we see a practitioner admitting to an obvious point we praise him like a puppy who has just gone outside to take a dump.
Dionne has arrived exactly where he should be.
JP| 9.4.09 @ 10:07AM
Bok,
I hate to be the one to tell you, but Natural Law is a Catholic Concept, and while some Protestants thinkers may have adopted some points from Natural Law thinking, over the centuries most Protestants have shelved the concept entirely.
As far as TAS evolving into a Catholic-Centric publication, I think it is just coincidence. Much of the recent news either touches or has touched Catholic themse (Obama's visit to Notre Dame, the death of Senator Kennedy, EJ Dionne's evolution as a pundit, etc...).
You know, TAS does take submissions. You could always submit your own articles for publication, you know. There are plenty of subjects concerning Protestant issues that I think should be written (the recent rise of the Liberal Evangelical, for example).
Howard| 9.4.09 @ 10:27AM
I enjoy watching those old movies from the 1940's- early 1960's. The liberal character, usually played by Spencer Tracy or Henry Fonda was a man of principle. Against various injustices, but usually a fair arbiter. Today's liberal/leftist was nurtured in the late 1960's and especially made their bones during the 1972 McGovern debacle. They are didactic, unreasonable, and caricatures of what a "liberal" would stand for, i.e. Nancy Pelosi is a good example. This article expertly details how E.J. Dionne gave in to the dark side of liberalism.
Vern Crisler| 9.4.09 @ 11:44AM
JP, I think you need to do a little more homework with respect to Protestants and the natural law idea.
JP| 9.4.09 @ 12:17PM
Vern,
I don't think so. During the Reformation the ideas concerning Natural Law remained anchored in many of the Reformed Faith, but over time most of the mainline confessions rejected it. Karl Barth was probably the best example. There has been renewed interest in Natural Law amongst some Evangelicals, but Natural Law from a theological standpoint has a fairly low standing amongst most Protestant intellectuals. In Catholic theology Natural is still considered indispensible. Both the current Pope as well as JPII relied on it heavily.
Peter Moon| 9.4.09 @ 12:20PM
'refusal to engage' = 'self-indulgence' = 'liberal'.
Liberal Reader| 9.4.09 @ 12:27PM
Mr Judge,
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of this analysis; it's very refreshing to read a conservative critique of someone like Dionne written by someone who has actually read Dionne and who has a certain respect for what he does.
I think at times your critique of him fails to account for the intensity of polarization that has occurred in the last 10 years.
Democrats -- I'll start with my side -- have too often accused the Bush administration as "lying" about the Iraq war or WMD. I don't think that they understand how offensive that accusation is, or how unproductive it was to make it. Similarly, Democrats accused Bush too often of being "stupid," "incompetent," and so on -- which, aside from its own inherent toxicity -- merely reinforced the widespread belief that liberals are elitist jackasses. God knows, liberals can be elitist jackasses.
On the other hand, conservative talk radio -- posing as a perpetual victim of the so-called "liberal media -- has about 15 hours a day to hurl the most inflammatory accusations at Democrats. We'd thought we heard it all when Clinton was president, but Limbaugh's satires against Clinton now sound gentle.
To be a Democrat and here people with audiences of millions referring to you as "fascist," "communist," and "treasonous" is almost unbelievably offensive. I'd as soon crack Glenn Beck across the face as speak with him, for all the times he's basically questioned my patriotism and love of my country.
If you factor in the intensification and deep debasement of political discourse, Dionne still comes off (as you do, I might add) sounding pretty reasonable and worth reading.
For the record, I'm not a fascist, and Mark Levin can go jump in a lake.
Jeremy Stevens| 9.4.09 @ 12:30PM
Bok & JP:
You both make excellent points.
A Catholic in Puritan New England, I was driving (just a couple of days ago) through a string of small Massachusetts towns, each with a stately, white, beautifully-steepled Congregational church (United Church of Christ, the signs all say), and the dates of their having been founded ("gathered"?) are astoundingly early. Yet each of them - and I do mean EACH OF THEM - has the rainbow flag on the signboard right near that ancient date of foundation, and some of them - this is truly offensive morally AND aesthetically - RAINBOW FLAGS hanging between the stately Corinthian (?) columns.
I thought, WWJED: What Would Jonathan Edwards Do? Or at least say (thunder?).
THAT would make a fascinating article for those of you from the evangelical side: what do the older (and I presume the most faithful donors) of these parishes think of such developments?
But regarding poor EJD: I wonder what the good (and conservative, I presume) Benedictine monks of his prep school alma mater, Portsmouth Abbey, make of their famous alumnus.
Michael L. Hauschild| 9.4.09 @ 12:51PM
All it takes to get the direction of the discourse to shift is to mention, religion, abortion, or gay rights. The topic is Dionne and a very responsible well-researched article by Judge concerning the demise of the MSM and one of its icons, something rewarding and dear to our hearts. JP please do not fall victim to the troll.
If he somehow manages to intrude simply follow his posts by typing in PEOTUS, Sarah Palin. (President elect of the United States, Sarah Palin.)
Vern Crisler| 9.4.09 @ 1:13PM
JP,
The rejection of natural law by Karl Barth and "most mainline confessions" is hardly the "over the centuries most Protestants have shelved the concept entirely" that you originally posted.
You may not realize it, but contemporary Barthianism, neo-orthodoxy, and Protestant liberalism constitute a rejection of the inheritance of Protestantism, not an affirmation of it.
And Protestant natural law ideas did not end with the Reformation as you have claimed. The influence of twentieth century Progressivism, modernism, and left-wing fideism have done the most to destroy the older tradition.
But the tide seems to be turning back again among some Protestants to a recovery of their natural law heritage, and a renewed appreciation for the natural rights tradition of the American founders and Lincoln.
Liberal Reader| 9.4.09 @ 1:16PM
Bok --
In the interests of historical accuracy, it might ALSO be worth pointing out that while the Reformation had an enormous -- incalculable -- influence on the Enlightenment and thus on the Founders, the Founders themselves were not uniformly good, faithful Protestants. The Constitutional Convention was not the 18th Century's version of the 700 Club.
The Puritans in New England had a rather nebulous politics; again, there wasn't a great deal of uniformity, except for the loathing of English monarchy they shared. Puritan settlements were often much less tolerant of individual liberties than England, although some were more tolerant.
Derek Leaberry| 9.4.09 @ 1:59PM
EJ Dionne is a fraudulent Catholic as well. He is in league with Satan. If he takes Holy Communion, he desecrates the Host and commits a mortal sin.
JP| 9.4.09 @ 2:14PM
LR,
You said it better than me. It didn't mean to say that Protestant thought was inferior. The idea of "Freedom of Conscious" began with Luther had a big influence on bother secular and religious thinkers. And as you stated, the Founders were essientially children of the Reformation.
As late as Pope Pious X, the RCC had real misgivings concerning Enlightenment in general and Moderintyin particular. A young Polish Bishop, who was present at Vatican II attempted to reconcile Modernism and the Church. One of his young thinkers was a priest named Fr Ratzinger. Fides et Ratio, written in the 1990s, was their attempt at reconciling Faith and Reason.
John II| 9.4.09 @ 2:21PM
To get back to the topic of E.J. Dionne, it seems to me that Mr. Judge's observations about the man's apparent transformation are consistent with an even less happy impression I've had of him for years.
I think Dionne is of the school of, say, David Brooks--by which I mean he's always been a get-along, get-ahead intellectual opportunist with a damp index finger frequently raised to check the prevailing winds. As a journalist, and throughout his public career, his only achievement is to be a fairly accurate weather vane responding to the passing winds of a degenerate culture. God only knows why, but I think Dionne is rather like what Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, CA: there's no there there.
Marc Jeric| 9.4.09 @ 4:34PM
Having escaped from a communist hell years ago, I consider myself very knowledgeable in communist thinking and propaganda. On that basis, I can not only predict all the opinions Komrad Dionne may hold - I will take bets on that!
james| 9.4.09 @ 6:04PM
It's true that Dionne has probably slipped his moorings in the last decade, but he hasn't drifted too far from the dock. This is an interesting piece but it overstates by a mile the Dionne of old. I think he's what he always was, but now he's old and lazy. It's slovenliness that we are seeing rather than genetic decline. He has always been a throne-sniffing leftist.
Robert Rosencrans| 9.4.09 @ 8:44PM
Of course, there's the third alternative. Maybe the original book was ghost written and he lent his name to it, as opposed to his efforts. Then there's the fourth alternative that drinking Kool Aide jells the brain and dulls the senses. At that point you tend to miss massive facts while making up phony facts of your own.
wells| 9.4.09 @ 10:54PM
all leftists, EJ has run out of facts and law. Now he simply pounds the table. The ultimate destination of all leftist "intellectuals" is completely predictable.
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Aliba| 9.4.09 @ 10:56PM
Yes,Mr. Judge's observations about the man's apparent transformation are consistent with an even less happy impression I've had of him for years.
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Pingback| 9.5.09 @ 6:27PM
The American Spectator : The Fall of a Journalist | americantoday links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
AJC| 9.6.09 @ 1:29AM
Thanks for sharing news about the good liberal, reasonale man and faithful Chatholic.
Paul| 9.6.09 @ 5:01AM
AJC
Surely you're not speaking of E. J. Dionne!? Or was that sarcasm?
icr | 9.6.09 @ 6:54AM
Dionne no longer engages conservative issues because the alleged conservatives -at least the ones who run for office-have surrendered on every domestic issue since the start of the Bush years.
See the article above on the VA Governor's race.
john dunn| 9.6.09 @ 1:16PM
Dionne is a predictable lefty who has not evolved or devolved, he is what he is.
and his catholic roots are the roots of a collectivist socialist ideology that gives only lip service to the importance of the individual or the conviction that freedom, responsibility and the adult civic virtues should govern a polity. catholics are, by nature, inclined to all the things that bring down free markets, representative republican government and respect for the individual.
i went to a catholic funeral of a psychiatrist who volunteered to go to iraq and was killed by one of his soldier patients. it was 35 minutes into the service before his name was mentioned. it was all about the collective and the church and nothing much about this american hero, they called him by his first name like he was a 10 year old kid who was tragically lost to the collective--made me want to gag. catholics voted for obama, knowing he is a committed abortionist.
was mark judge living on some other planet to think that dionned was anything other than a leftist commie hack? dionne wasn't lost to the left--he is the left.
Billwick| 9.6.09 @ 4:29PM
"Liberal Reader," you will be happy to know that I never refer to people of the Donne ilk as "fascists," "communists," or "traitors." I refer to them as "people who have wet dreams of the State having a gigantic phallus, so they can suck it."
It's my contribution to less inflammatory political discourse.
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Neo| 9.7.09 @ 2:02PM
Who said it's all about jobs, jobs, jobs ?
E.J.Dionne is like every other journalist out there trying to keep a job. With the ranks of newspapers shrinking, he has put his finger in the air and come up thinking that in DC the wind always blows "Left". It is then left to each journalist to determine just how fast it is blowing "Left".
Memento Mori| 9.7.09 @ 7:19PM
I suspect Dionne's higher brain functions are deteriorating, his writings an example of how horrifying that first slip is down the ramp marked "senile dementia."
jordan 6 rings| 9.7.09 @ 10:11PM
I think he's what he always was, but now he's old and lazy. It's slovenliness that we are seeing rather than genetic decline. He has always been a throne-sniffing leftist.
Answers1| 9.7.09 @ 10:55PM
EJD was just following the crowd...initially shills for the Democratic Party and, now, active obnoxious promoters. Good riddance.
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Ed the Roman| 9.12.09 @ 12:44PM
John Dunn,
A Catholic Funeral is a Mass, and it is not actually supposed to include a eulogy at all; that is supposed to be for the wake, or afterwards. So I don't think 35 minutes without the decedent's name being mentioned is really an affront.