Playing "wedge ball" down South...will it work?
As the Republicans feel more fear approaching the mid-terms, we've seen the GOP trot out gay marriage, trot out flag burning, pretty much bring out any "wedge issue" they can find. This week (if you were paying attention) they've decided to pull a move out the Nixon playbook by slamming the media. This time, the venerable NY Times gets slammed for revealing yet another "legally questionable" surveillance program (banktapping.) VP Cheney decided to stop just short of calling reporters and editors at the NYTimes traitors. Besides being an overwhelmingly hypocritical move (remember, this is an admin that likes to leak classified information to the Times, but only if the reporter is Judith "I now pen screeds for the WSJ" Miller) it isn't smart tactically. Remember what pissing off the Washington Press Corps did for VP Gore. This is guaranteed to hurt Bushco. But, have any of you noticed the same strategy making itself felt on the local level? We have former Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson (former Clinton impeachment prosecutor, Congressman, etc.) running for the Gov's office. He's behind in fundraising, behind in the polls, and the math just doesn't say anything nice about his chances (his campaign operatives would disagree with me) -- now, his legion of anonymous bloggers in the state have decided to jump on a newspaper columnist for being "liberal." Lots of personal attacks, and this guy's a grown-up, he doesn't care. However, on several of the pro-Asa blogs, operatives have started issuing lists of all the state's newspaper columnists, listing those writers as either "liberals" or "conservatives" -- the call of "liberal media" has already starting ringing here. Believe me, the media in this state is farrrrrrrr from liberal. Not sure whether it's funny or frightening, but as a bona-fide journalist, it irritates me -- such a self-contradictory and see-through tactic just speaks volumes. Again, visit our website at
Arkansas Tonight.