A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss
Pumping Up The Volume, Going For The Kill
November 30, 2000
Here's what you get from a romp through the playing fields of the left these days: a sense of grievance so dense it's practically chewy.
Third Way pundits spit and fume as they dig in to defend the indefensible Mr. Gore.
To no-one's surprise -- at least, not to mine -- the nastier they get, the more they blame Republicans for Making Them Do It. (There's an irresistible temptation, in left-wing circles, to retreat into outrageous pouting when the truth begins to singe.)
The usual players are now busily persuading themselves that they'd have long ago gone home to sip sherry and discuss dry points of law -- if only those impossible Republicans hadn't picked a fight.
"By impugning the Democrats' patriotism over military ballots," huffed E. J. Dionne in a recent Washington Post column, "sending in those demonstrators to protest and perhaps impede the Miami-Dade count, threatening to use Florida's Republican legislature to send a Bush slate to the electoral college and being just brazen all around, the Bush apparat has united Democrats behind the vice president's contest."
Excuse me, E. J.? When Republicans exercise a genteel, suburban version of the cut-throat tactics long wielded by your fellow-Democrats (and about time, too!) they're "just being brazen all around?"
You'd think the boy had never heard of Al Sharpton, or David Boies, or Paul Begala -- much less Mr. Clinton.
Much less Mr. Gore.
Speaking of brazen, Jesse Jackson and the Congressional Black Caucus have been recalled from exile to pump up the volume.
Early on in Mr. Gore's Long March to the Oval Office, these characters triggered something of a public backlash. Fightin' Al -- still confident, then, that the Florida Supreme Court would hand him the presidential trophy, along with a wink and a nod -- promptly ordered them off-camera.
The Court gambit didn't quite pan out, though, and Mr. Gore's race card has reappeared, smack-dab on top of the deck.
The Reverend Mr. Jackson has resumed his public fulminations about Selma and slavery. The Caucus -- cynically hawking the fantasy that all those spoiled ballots reflect civil rights violations rather than the inevitable snarl, when tens of thousands of non-voters are herded to the polls without instruction -- is demanding an 'investigation' by our incendiary Attorney-General.
**Only yesterday, Congressman Charlie Rangel, the affable Harlem Fidelista, remarked that if Mr. Bush comes to Washington, "What could we do in the Congress? As a member, I think the first thing I would do is apply for my pistol." **
It's not the sort of comment Tom DeLay could get away with.
The Gories are particularly incensed that the Florida legislature -- excuse me, of course I mean "the Republican-controlled Florida legislature" -- has indicated a willingness to involve itself in this brawl.
Horrors! they howl. Elected representatives, tampering with the vote? Whatever next! Elections are for the courts to decide!
They're so splenetic, so noisy, so outraged, you're almost tempted to believe them. It must be right there, in the Constitution, decreed for all time by the Founding Fathers -- the bedrock requirement that elections be decided by judges.
As, of course, Mr. Gore hopes this one will be.
Nikki Clark, a left-activist judge with a running grudge against the Bush family (Governor Jeb Bush recently blocked her ascension to the Florida Appellate Court), is under considerable pressure -- not that she requires much -- to turn the tide for Mr. Gore by throwing out thousands of absentee ballots in Seminole County.
These ballots were tainted when (in mediaspeak) "Republican operatives" working in "back rooms" filled in identification numbers on flawed application forms.
Mind you, there was no fiddling with the ballots themselves in Seminole County (which is more than you can say for the ballots in Dade and Palm Beach Counties). What's more, Florida courts have established a lenient precedent in such matters.
It's a picture that surely trumps a thousand words from Mr. Gore (if only he'd stop at a thousand).
The People's candidate, laboring feverishly to throw out scads of incontestable votes (no dimples: no chads) even as he natters, heaven help us, without cease, about the sanctity of the vote -- appearing round-the-clock like some demented infomercial to insist that he is "trying to preserve democracy."
If Judge Clark plays along, this reckless strategy will leave Mr. Gore and his fellow-Democrats on the thinnest of political ice.
For one thing, it forces us to ponder the possibility that corrupt gambits -- from "dimpled ballots" to more classic strategies of ballot-tampering -- may account for much, and perhaps all, of Mr. Gore's famous one-third of one percent advantage in the popular vote.
For another, it brings home the blunt truth that when Democrats talk (and talk they do, nowadays) about "the rule of law," what they're really talking about is the rule of lawyers.
This brings us full-circle to Mr. Dionne and his friends, and the real reason for their radioactive pout (so hot it may spontaneously combust).
These folks are addicted to a belief in their own virtue: New Age Ubermensch, they literally cannot get through the day without reassuring themselves at least twice of their transcendent goodness.
Alas, Mr. Gore's desperate lunge at victory has outed them, making it humiliatingly clear that what they hunger and thirst for isn't justice, or the betterment of humankind.
No. What they want, so badly they can taste it, is power -- the pure liberating excess of political supremacy.
During impeachment, apologists like Mr. Dionne revealed a precious talent for rewriting history on the fly. Deftly, they focused the nation's attention on Mr. Clinton's human 'failings' rather than his political atrocities, transmuting the furtive pleasures of a monstrous, aging adolescent into a morality play about Republican prurience and a man's right to do -- well -- what a man must do.
Now, with similar intensity (and identical tactics), they've thrown themselves into the task of rewriting Mr. Gore's Florida fiasco. But Fightin' Al has left them painfully little wiggle-room.
Understand: the Loveable Rogue is a stock American hero. It was easy innings for the paid chatters to reinvent Mr. Clinton as a horndog with a heart of gold.
There's no American love-affair with ruthless ambition, though. When Mr. Gore dives below the belt, we know what he's after, and it isn't sex. The guy is going in for the kill. No matter how you spin it, it's not a pretty sight.
But at least it's real.
he says it is super Poor Mr. Dionne: how he must hate that.
by deb weiss
Pumping Up The Volume, Going For The Kill
November 30, 2000
Here's what you get from a romp through the playing fields of the left these days: a sense of grievance so dense it's practically chewy.
Third Way pundits spit and fume as they dig in to defend the indefensible Mr. Gore.
To no-one's surprise -- at least, not to mine -- the nastier they get, the more they blame Republicans for Making Them Do It. (There's an irresistible temptation, in left-wing circles, to retreat into outrageous pouting when the truth begins to singe.)
The usual players are now busily persuading themselves that they'd have long ago gone home to sip sherry and discuss dry points of law -- if only those impossible Republicans hadn't picked a fight.
"By impugning the Democrats' patriotism over military ballots," huffed E. J. Dionne in a recent Washington Post column, "sending in those demonstrators to protest and perhaps impede the Miami-Dade count, threatening to use Florida's Republican legislature to send a Bush slate to the electoral college and being just brazen all around, the Bush apparat has united Democrats behind the vice president's contest."
Excuse me, E. J.? When Republicans exercise a genteel, suburban version of the cut-throat tactics long wielded by your fellow-Democrats (and about time, too!) they're "just being brazen all around?"
You'd think the boy had never heard of Al Sharpton, or David Boies, or Paul Begala -- much less Mr. Clinton.
Much less Mr. Gore.
Speaking of brazen, Jesse Jackson and the Congressional Black Caucus have been recalled from exile to pump up the volume.
Early on in Mr. Gore's Long March to the Oval Office, these characters triggered something of a public backlash. Fightin' Al -- still confident, then, that the Florida Supreme Court would hand him the presidential trophy, along with a wink and a nod -- promptly ordered them off-camera.
The Court gambit didn't quite pan out, though, and Mr. Gore's race card has reappeared, smack-dab on top of the deck.
The Reverend Mr. Jackson has resumed his public fulminations about Selma and slavery. The Caucus -- cynically hawking the fantasy that all those spoiled ballots reflect civil rights violations rather than the inevitable snarl, when tens of thousands of non-voters are herded to the polls without instruction -- is demanding an 'investigation' by our incendiary Attorney-General.
**Only yesterday, Congressman Charlie Rangel, the affable Harlem Fidelista, remarked that if Mr. Bush comes to Washington, "What could we do in the Congress? As a member, I think the first thing I would do is apply for my pistol." **
It's not the sort of comment Tom DeLay could get away with.
The Gories are particularly incensed that the Florida legislature -- excuse me, of course I mean "the Republican-controlled Florida legislature" -- has indicated a willingness to involve itself in this brawl.
Horrors! they howl. Elected representatives, tampering with the vote? Whatever next! Elections are for the courts to decide!
They're so splenetic, so noisy, so outraged, you're almost tempted to believe them. It must be right there, in the Constitution, decreed for all time by the Founding Fathers -- the bedrock requirement that elections be decided by judges.
As, of course, Mr. Gore hopes this one will be.
Nikki Clark, a left-activist judge with a running grudge against the Bush family (Governor Jeb Bush recently blocked her ascension to the Florida Appellate Court), is under considerable pressure -- not that she requires much -- to turn the tide for Mr. Gore by throwing out thousands of absentee ballots in Seminole County.
These ballots were tainted when (in mediaspeak) "Republican operatives" working in "back rooms" filled in identification numbers on flawed application forms.
Mind you, there was no fiddling with the ballots themselves in Seminole County (which is more than you can say for the ballots in Dade and Palm Beach Counties). What's more, Florida courts have established a lenient precedent in such matters.
It's a picture that surely trumps a thousand words from Mr. Gore (if only he'd stop at a thousand).
The People's candidate, laboring feverishly to throw out scads of incontestable votes (no dimples: no chads) even as he natters, heaven help us, without cease, about the sanctity of the vote -- appearing round-the-clock like some demented infomercial to insist that he is "trying to preserve democracy."
If Judge Clark plays along, this reckless strategy will leave Mr. Gore and his fellow-Democrats on the thinnest of political ice.
For one thing, it forces us to ponder the possibility that corrupt gambits -- from "dimpled ballots" to more classic strategies of ballot-tampering -- may account for much, and perhaps all, of Mr. Gore's famous one-third of one percent advantage in the popular vote.
For another, it brings home the blunt truth that when Democrats talk (and talk they do, nowadays) about "the rule of law," what they're really talking about is the rule of lawyers.
This brings us full-circle to Mr. Dionne and his friends, and the real reason for their radioactive pout (so hot it may spontaneously combust).
These folks are addicted to a belief in their own virtue: New Age Ubermensch, they literally cannot get through the day without reassuring themselves at least twice of their transcendent goodness.
Alas, Mr. Gore's desperate lunge at victory has outed them, making it humiliatingly clear that what they hunger and thirst for isn't justice, or the betterment of humankind.
No. What they want, so badly they can taste it, is power -- the pure liberating excess of political supremacy.
During impeachment, apologists like Mr. Dionne revealed a precious talent for rewriting history on the fly. Deftly, they focused the nation's attention on Mr. Clinton's human 'failings' rather than his political atrocities, transmuting the furtive pleasures of a monstrous, aging adolescent into a morality play about Republican prurience and a man's right to do -- well -- what a man must do.
Now, with similar intensity (and identical tactics), they've thrown themselves into the task of rewriting Mr. Gore's Florida fiasco. But Fightin' Al has left them painfully little wiggle-room.
Understand: the Loveable Rogue is a stock American hero. It was easy innings for the paid chatters to reinvent Mr. Clinton as a horndog with a heart of gold.
There's no American love-affair with ruthless ambition, though. When Mr. Gore dives below the belt, we know what he's after, and it isn't sex. The guy is going in for the kill. No matter how you spin it, it's not a pretty sight.
But at least it's real.
he says it is super Poor Mr. Dionne: how he must hate that.
