Adam Nagourney has his story line, and he's by God sticking to it.

Howard Dean emerged Tuesday as the almost assured new leader of the Democratic National Committee, as one of his main rivals quit the race and Democrats streamed to announce their support of a man whose presidential campaign collapsed one year ago. ...

There were few Democrats in Washington who doubted that Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, was on the verge of taking over the party, with the support of much, though certainly not all, of its establishment. Democrats marveled at how someone who had been viewed as a symbol of some of the excesses of the party - [Gerald] McEntee [of AFSCME] described Dr. Dean as "nuts" after he withdrew his endorsement of him in the middle of the presidential campaign - was now on the brink of becoming a face of the opposition to President Bush.

The A1 lead article, which for some unknown reason is not headlined, as it ought to be, "Big Loser to Lead Loser Party further into Loserdom," takes a somewhat more restrained tone than Nagourney's projectile-vomiting of snark following the New York DNC Regional Caucus (blogged on previously here), but is otherwise of a piece with it.

Nagourney is such an apt channeler of Democratic feeling that he can intuit the "marvel" that Democrats feel at watching Dean's ascendancy, their concern to be assured that Dean "was not the liberal and undisciplined caricature that many said they saw last year," apparently without needing actually to talk to any of them. Certainly he can't be bothered directly to quote these concerned marvellers. Nor can he be bothered to talk to anybody in the Dem fold who, you know, might see a rationale for Dean's becoming chairman of the party, much less feel in a mood to celebrate it. (It's a striking fact of the political landscape in Nagourney's writing that Dean seems to have endorsements, and very nearly a lock on the position, without having any actual constituency in the party. That'd be a nice trick if Dean had managed it—but a look over at Daily Kos, to name just one source, might have showed Adam that something other than sleight-of-hand is going on here.)

Ad Nags is more than happy, on the other hand, to spend several paragraphs quoting Republicans, upon whom he relies to supply his minimum daily requirement of snotty attitude:

Republicans, who had already been portraying the Democrats as obstructionist and extreme, seemed somewhere between being delighted and amused to have Dr. Dean to kick around again, instantly invoking a defining moment in his career.

"After 10 years, you wonder if Democrats are running out of ways to say no," said Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader. "But then again, if they make Howard Dean the party chairman, I guess you could scream it."

Richard Bond, the former head of the Republican National Committee, said: "He's a very capable guy, he's got high energy, but he will reinforce all of their worst instincts. His style and message is one that will narrow his party's options rather than expand them."

"I think it's a scream," Mr. Bond said.

The fact that that "defining moment" in Dean's career was entirely an invention of the media can hardly be expected to enforce circumspection on Republicans—but oughtn't it chasten a reporter just a little? A useless plea, I know, yet I make it anyway: is it really too much to expect that the "liberal" New York Times might assign a reporter to cover the Democratic party who can find the strength not to treat it (and its constituency of just slightly under half of the fucking national electorate) as the punchline to a tired joke?

Update: Ben Brackley offered his complaining letter to Dan Okrent about this article in comments, below; but it's nicely formatted in his Daily Kos diary here, and worth the read.

posted by michael  12:49:04 PM  
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Banana Republicans. The motive behind the GOP push to "reform" the medical liability system was clear enough when I wrote about it a week ago, still it's nice to see it so neatly confirmed (in the LA Times, via Suburban Guerilla):

One of the clearest examples is an effort to limit jury awards in lawsuits against doctors and businesses. The caps might not only discourage "frivolous" lawsuits, as Bush argues, but also deprive trial lawyers of income from damage awards that they could then give to Democrats.

"If we could succeed in getting some form of tort reform passed — medical malpractice reform or any of part of that — it would go a long ways toward … taking away the muscle, the financial muscle that they have," said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who ousted Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle last fall despite a heavy flood of trial lawyer money backing the Democrat.

On issue after issue, the White House is staking out positions that achieve a policy goal while expanding the GOP's appeal to new voters or undermining the Democrats' ability to compete. Interviews with Bush advisors, a recent memo drafted by a senior White House strategist and a speech last month by the Republican Party's new chairman show that the political advantages are very much part of the calculation.

And while this is probably belaboring the obvious, let's just be explicit about it: this is not ordinary politics. Damage to the Democrats' financial muscle isn't just a happy corollary of tort reform, not just "part of the calculation" that goes into policy-making: it's the strategic goal. It's not even just the obverse of the strategic goal of enriching and emboldening the GOP's donor base (in this instance, HMOs, Big Pharma, and the medical lobby).

The Bush-DeLay GOP aims at creating an electoral dictatorship in this country, as simple as that. Institutionalized vote-stealing, radicalization of the GOP base, ever tighter consolidation of government, media and public relations, the financial desiccation of the other side: all of these are tools in the same toolkit. The Democrats are to be devolved into a rump caucus, just strong enough to contest elections and provide a fig leaf of democratic process, never strong enough to win (above the local level). Every significant policy direction that will be taken in the Bush second term will be taken with that aim in view. This is the game they're playing, and determined to win: to turn the United States into Mexico under the PRI. (Don't think the Texans didn't learn a few things looking across the border over the years.) Which is why every initiative that comes out of this White House and the Republican Congress has to be fought.

posted by michael  9:39:58 AM  
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