What's Missing

So much was missing from the October 3, 2010 New York Times (NYT) “Sunday Opinion” section that what was left out outdid even what was unjustifiably there.

Non-Leftist Viewpoints

In the last month of an historic political campaign—the story of which is mainly that of a resurgent, patriotic energy swamping the Left—we find no opinion in the Sunday section to counterbalance Leftist spew. With conservative NYT columnist David Brooks so eloquently smashing the Insurgent-Right-Wingers-Threaten-Republican-Party¹ “narrative”² on the same page recently, perhaps it's understandable. Without such a healthy counterbalance this time it's left to feeble minds like mine to highlight what's missing.

Explanation of Terms

Those of us who don't spend our time developing wildly perverse theories to make life fit acceptably into our own beliefs might need a little help understanding what these guys are talking about. Especially as they use inscrutable terms they seem to make up as they go along. What the heck, for example, I ask Thomas L. Friedman, is the “radical center”? a “tortured compromise”? a “super-consensus”?³

Frank Rich spends his entire “The Very Useful Idiocy of Christine O'Donnell” trying to get us to see what a “useful idiot” is (presuming that Republican operatives knew all along). This at least gives us a chance at understanding the oxymoronic term.⁴ But what about “conservative grandee”? a “phantom front organization”? or “corporate pork”?⁵

In a year of unprecedented anti-Left political energy upsetting the entire electoral and party system—when the Wall Street Journal, for example, actually reports on this remarkable upsurge as an actual historical movement made up of actual concerned Americans—we call this "fair news coverage".

But when The New York Times unabashedly anoints The Great One Who Would Save Us All as representing the Second Coming, along with the rest of the Leftist Media Bloc, all but ignoring responsible coverage of competitive campaigning and viewpoints—unless it could be presented like foam out of the mouth of a rabid dog—we call it "mass propaganda" (which indeed it was).

Logical Support

With a piece titled “Third Party Rising”, especially one starting out in Ancient Rome, we might expect at least cursory reference to a few items that could aid understanding of the phenomenon of multiple parties. Some mention of England's experience, both historical and recent. Perhaps even our own history, together with a discussion of at least the larger one or two of a fairly long list of third parties that have been a part of the U.S. political scene down through the years. What about our own experiments with third parties has soured our own hopes in that direction?

But the most glaring omission, one that even the most casual reader will catch, is the large number of Americans identifying themselves as “sympathetic” to the Tea Party message.⁶ Might not an article entitled "Third Party Rising" name this group as the potential spring bed for this “third party rising”, “one definitely big enough to impact the election's outcome”? Especially considering that's obviously what prompted the writer to take up his pen on this topic to begin with?

What America needs, Mr. Friedman says, is a third party to “look Americans in the eye and say:

'These two parties are lying to you. They can't tell you the truth because they are each trapped in decades of special interests.'"

Isn't that what the Tea Party is doing?

The Tea Party has already proved itself big enough to affect the outcome of this election in a big way. Yet Mr. Friedman apparently sees no future for it, only to introduce “two serious groups”—apparently new-on-the-scene—that are supposedly developing "serious" third parties.

The Tea Party may not seem serious enough to the author, but it must seem serious as a heart attack to those sure-lock candidates of both parties it's brushing aside like so much debris.

Leftist Names

Leftist billionaire, George Soros

Amidst all the names of billionaires, supposedly so hidden behind their “phantom front organizations”, and all the names of the rightly outraged people⁷ and politicians who have the nerve to utilize the American political system to challenge those who seem to be destroying the country's greatness so very quickly, the only Leftist name we find on first reading is Bill Maher's (so appropriate). George Soros, darling billionaire of the Left who set the entire political-giving pattern now being decried by the Left, is missing from the list.

We do find one reference to The Great One Who Would Save Us All:

“However much these corporate contributors may share the Tea Party minions' antipathy toward President Obama, their economic interests hardly overlap.”

This is the principal Leftist whose policies, attitudes, and words have created this political rebellion throughout the nation. He happens to preside over us all. Surely he merits more than a single reference to how much this patriotic group detests him. What about extolling his great accomplishments in office.

Mr. Rich has no interest in building anyone up, apparently, or saying anything positive about anyone--not even the Leftists who are causing all the problems to begin with.

Biggest Thing Missing

The most important thing missing from these columns is what is missing, it might be said, from any Leftist political or social commentary.

The entire premise of “The Very Useful Idiocy of Christine O'Donnell”, written by The New York Time's flagship columnist, is that American billionaires—so careful to work the system without being seen to—willingly and knowingly promote an idiot politician as a front to their activities. This is why, he claims, the crafty likes of Karl Rove withdraws his criticism of her, and why these super-smart movers and shakers continue to support her. Rather than promoting someone who can actually take power, they use this loss-leader so they can continue to operate in the dark.

Such people only behave in the manner described in a Leftist nightmare—not in the Real World where the rest of us live.

We may be witnessing the genesis of a brilliant new political tactic. Let's call it “billionaire baiting”. An interesting game to be playing, especially with The New York Times on the financial ropes—not able to spew raw political propaganda and get enough people to pay good money for it. One of these attacked tycoons might go Murdoch and buy out the entire operation thereby redressing this miserable misapplication of resources.

What seems to be lacking in The New York Time's finest mind is perhaps the most important thing of all:

A Dose of Reality.

Definition of Idiocy

With so much emphasis on "idiocy" in Mr. Rich's column, he might have included a definition of the term. Here's what Merriam-Webster says it means . .

1. —usually offensive: extreme mental retardation
2. —something notably stupid or foolish

It lists synonyms as: absurdity, asininity, bêtise, fatuity, foolery, foppery, folly, imbecility, inanity, insanity, lunacy, stupidity.⁸ 

With all this in mind, we might add a third definition for "idiocy" . .

3.—Frank Rich's October 3, 2010 column on "useful idiocy" in the once-great New York Times.

It must be a "useful idiocy", that of Mr. Rich, as somebody is able to justify continuing to pay him for it. I'm thinking he plays an important role in the Left, that of Useful Idiot: he provides the salve, by means of his idiotic theories, for Leftists unable to face the facts of human existence and the truth of human behavior.

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1. "The myth of the tea party backlash: There is no evidence that the tea party will drive independent voters to the Democrats" by David Brooks, Sunday, September 19, 2010.
2. The Left's favorite word, followed closely by "notion", and more recently “conflate”.
3. While Mr. Friedman's explaining his terms, perhaps he could tell us what he means by “the worst existential crisis in our economy and environment in a century”. We can dope out “two-party duopoly”, but what self-respecting columnist would use such a clumsily redundant phrase borrowed from economics?
4. The term originally applied to Soviet sympathizers in Western countries—held in contempt by the Soviets, but being used cynically by them.
5. While Mr. Rich is giving us an explanation of his terms, he might also tell us what a "Roger Ailes re-education camp" is and why Karl Rove would ever be sent to one. Could he also please tell us what it means to receive an “outsize cut of the red ink”? [The only politically non-aligned opinion on the page, Arthur S. Brisbane's “The Public Editor” piece, perhaps offers them a solution to their apparent making-it-up-as-we-go-along syndrome. The authors could give us explanations in the unlimited space of the NYT website as Brisbane suggests for scholarly attributions.]
6. Fifty two percent (52%) of Americans "feel sympathy" with the tea party movement. SOURCE: "Big Government is Not the Issue" by Steven Kull; August 19, 2010.
7. Referring to his fellow newspaper columnist as "blogger Michelle Malkin" certainly lacks professional courtesy, while perhaps indicating professional jealousy (she at least has the ability to see things as they really are without developing loopy theories to make the world and its people work according to her own preconceived notions).
8. And "related terms" as: absurdness, craziness, foolishness, inaneness, madness, senselessness, witlessness; buffoonery, monkeyshine(s), shenanigan(s), tomfoolery; drivel, humbug, nonsense, twaddle; blunder, bungle, flub, goof, howler.