OK, I don't expect the likes of "the Howards" (Kurtz and Fineman) or any of the other obvious media whores to be anything but corrupt. But whenever I see a byline from someone like EJ Dionne, I still get my hopes up. Only to have those hopes dashed over and over again.
Today's offering is typical. In general, Dionne seems to bash Democrats in general at least as much as he criticizes Republicans. And he's supposed to be on our side??!?
Being a comfortable inside-the-Beltway solon, Dionne is of course drenched in Georgetown-townhouse conventional wisdom, so he has veered from hostility to skepticism on the subject of Howard Dean. Today's column was skeptical, an effort at balance.
Yet several points in his column reveal the hostility beneath. Right up front, he writes that Dean is running against the establishment, but then Dionne claims that there is no "effective Democratic establishment" and casts aspersions of lunacy on those who think there is one. Where to begin?
First, Dean supporters don't, in fact, believe there is an "effective" Democratic establishment; indeed, it's demonstrably ineffective, and that's why we want someone from the outside to shake things up. Second, a Democratic establishment does exist, and (I hate to break the news, but here goes), Dionne is part of it. Him and all the various center-left pundits who fill our airwaves and newspaper columns, all the career Washington politicians, all the career political operatives like McAuliffe and Carville.
Is it a coherent, effective organization like the Republicans have? No, of course not. The problem is that this establishment, this spouter of tired conventional wisdom, has led the Democrats to loss after loss in the last decade. Perhaps Dionne could write a column about why Democrats should continue to listen to those who have led them to the wilderness of permanent minority status.
Dionne also cites one anonymous Wisconsonite doubting the number of newcomers Dean has actually attracted to his campaign, without evidence or any reason to believe this person -- unless you're ready to believe any ol' bad thing about Dean.
And then Dionne hits it out of the plausibility park with this one: "Lots of Democrats are petrified of coming out against Dean precisely because he has built one of the few formidable organizations the Democratic Party has." So Dean lacks for Democratic critics? Has Dionne slept through the entire last six months, during which virtually every establishment Democrat has foamed at the mouth on the record about what a bad guy Dean is?
Oh, yeah, that Dean guy, intimidating people into silence right and left.
Is Dionne mad?