Snap Out Of It!!!!!!

The GOP members of Congress need a good Cher-inspired "Moonstruck" slap across the face right now. John Podhoretz in the New York Post is getting righteously annoyed by Republicans who are starting to feel the fear - from the MSM spin.

No question about it, the media are on the prowl against the GOP - but there's something unseemly about the right-wing whining. Media bias isn't worse this year than last, when Republicans somehow managed to win the White House and gain three Senate seats.

The current hand-wringing about the fight over judicial nominations and how the MSM will present it is unfounded and down-right sickening. And if they lose this fight, then the Republican base will give them something real to worry about.

The public's ability to see through the media filter extends to social issues as well as political candidacies. Notwithstanding media proselytizing, the public has become more opposed to gay marriage over the course of the past year. Even so, the fear of media manipulation remains as strong as ever, and might well get stronger still. Conservatives are baffled at the weird turn in the political fortunes of the Republicans, and the anti-media line offers them an easy answer to a complex problem.

They're not only baffled. They're getting angry, and they're blaming the Republicans on Capitol Hill for causing the mess. My friend Hugh Hewitt, radio talk-show host and brilliant blogger, speaks for many when he hurls Cassandra-like prophecies of ruin at GOP senators if they don't immediately act on the so-called "nuclear option" and change Senate rules to force through judicial nominees now stymied by Democratic filibusters.

"The failure to break the filibuster," Hewitt writes flatly on his blog, "will result in the defeat of Sens. [Olympia] Snowe and [Lincoln] Chaffee in their 2006 re-election campaigns if they are among the defectors, the end of any idea of Susan Collins joining the leadership, and the end of Sen. [Chuck] Hagel's and Sen. [Bill] Frist's presidential ambition. Fundraising for the National Republican Senatorial Committee will crater, and the majority so recently and dearly won could well vanish in a matter of 18 months."

Hewitt's words suggest the depth of conservative anxiety and worry over the current political situation - the fear that Republican politicians are going to look at the polls and lose their nerve. Conservatives have cause for worry. Politicians tend not to be brave.

To paraphrase the words of a real leader, now is NOT the time to "go wobbly", gentlemen.

Posted by: Gary at 02:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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