The Inexorable Logic of Disloyalty

Two observations I made about the American Left during the 2004 campaign - that they are more than willing to betray their own country to its enemies if it will regain them political power over it, and that their chronic failure to regain that power will drive them to Muslim-like violence - are beginning to be echoed in the center-right mainstream.

Okay, Bob Tyrrell's piece was a bit tongue-in-cheek. But at the heart of every good parody is a significant kernel of truth. One that Brandon Crocker correctly observes is long overdue for a public airing.

~ ~ ~

Why was Paul Hackett backstabbed out of the Ohio senatorial primary race by his own party? To sum it up, because he was too much like Howard Dean.

Newsmax has a sample:

WMAL Washington, D.C. radio host Steve Malzberg aired quotes from Hackett on Wednesday, where he repeatedly accused President Bush of using drugs.

Last November, Hackett began by telling Gentleman's Quarterly that Bush joined the National Guard instead of the army because "he wanted to drink alcohol and snort cocaine and party.”

A few days after the story hit newsstands, the Ohio Democrat was challenged about the allegation during an appearance on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews....

That may have gone by too quickly to fully register, so let's emphasize: Chris Matthews challenged a Democrat on outrageous accusations leveled against President Bush.

Resuming....

MATTHEWS: You said he wanted to drink alcohol and snort cocaine and party. Do you stand by that?

HACKETT: Those are the facts and I stand by them.

MATTHEWS: How do you know it's a fact that the President snorted cocaine, as you say.

HACKETT: I think it's been widely reported leading up to his first election. And there are many who have come forward and documented it and said they saw it happen. I take that at face value. I think that's probably quite factual.

Given the fact that he worked so hard to avoid service during his generation, it seems consistent to me . . . .

MATTHEWS: You know for a fact that President Bush, the commander-in-chief - because you're running for the U.S. Senate - was a cocaine user? You know that for a fact?

HACKETT: Well, I've read the reports as you have read the reports.

MATTHEWS: They're not reports, they're charges. I wouldn't say that I've read it in the Associated Press or the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. I may have heard the arguments made by people who I may not think have a firm grounding in journalism. But I've never heard a major or quality newspaper make such a charge.

HACKETT: I think that's a fair criticism. I'm merely relaying what you've heard and what I've heard.

MATTHEWS: That doesn't make it a fact, having heard it, does it?

HACKETT: Point well taken. I think, though, that where there's smoke, there's fire.

Or it means Hackett is smoking something. Ditto Matthews for suggesting that the New York Times has any connection to "firm grounding in journalism." But this is typical of the Iraq war veteran, who made a name for himself in the special House election last summer by posing as a veritable Scoop Jackson Democrat inside the suburban Cincinnati district and projectile-vituperating like Dr. Demented everywhere else. Something that would be a great deal more difficult to do in a statewide senate race even against a vulnerable incumbent like Mike DeWine.

That's not to say that Sherrod Brown, the Donk congressman who was the principle beneficiary of the Hackett shafting, is any great upset threat, being both unknown, dull, and to the left of another Dem kook from Ohio, Dennis Kucinich (as measured by the American Conservative Union). But then this is not as much about making the strongest run at DeWine as it is the raging civil war between the Deaniacs, Kos-hacks, Sorosians, et al on one side and the sadsack Dem establishmentarians on the other. Indeed, it was Dirty Harry Reid, along with Chucky Schumer, who wielded the knife against Hackett, and backhanded Chairman How for criticizing them for it, not all that long after Dean made a point of throwing a spotlight upon Reid's numerous and lucrative Jack Abramoff connections.

If this kind of internecine political combat was going on on the GOP side, the Extreme Media would be covering nothing else. But they would be doing their own party a favor by giving its own internal strife equal coverage anyway, if only to tip the balance one way or the other. Because while neither side has much hope of winning another national election again any time soon, the Democrats as a whole will certainly never do so with their members at each other's throats.

The lone exception would be to field a national candidate in 2008 with the prestige to paper over these raw-edged divisions.

But that's another post.

Besides, it may be beyond even Hillary's vast powers to paper over fascism like this.