The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Magic ‘D’

Posted on | August 9, 2021 | Comments Off on The Magic ‘D’

The other day, browsing headlines at RCP, I noticed this one:

Ohio special election: A good day for Democrats

So I clicked on it and started reading then noticed the byline.

Al Hunt? Is he still alive? The guy’s been around since I was in grade school. When I came to Washington 25 years ago, Hunt had already been D.C. bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal since anyone could remember, and was a fixture on TV panel shows, but he was (and is) perhaps best known as the husband of Judy Woodruff. He is also one of the most boring columnists ever to sit down at a keyboard. If what you were looking for was important news or penetrating insight, you could just skip Al Hunt’s column, a predictable collection of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom with a hefty dose of Democratic Party propaganda.

Like so many other mediocre journalists, Hunt remained employed for decades — and indeed, had quite the successful career — for one reason, and one reason only: Al Hunt is a liberal.

This is the only real qualification for a career in journalism, as is true in Hollywood and in academia. No actual talent is necessary. So long as you are useful to the basic media project of propagating liberalism, you’ll never miss a paycheck. And therefore nothing — not even accusations of sexual harassment — could dislodge Al Hunt from his seemingly eternal career as a D.C. journalist. He’s 79 years old, and still cranking out columns, now for The Hill, including this one last week:

Democrats got a double dose of welcome news in two Ohio special congressional elections yesterday, fending off a left-wing candidate in one district, while a Donald Trump-backed coal lobbyist won the Republican nod in another. . . .
Shontel Brown, a Democratic Cuyahoga County councilwoman defeated left-wing opponent Nina Turner for the seat vacated by Rep. Marcia Fudge, whom President Biden tapped as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
The 11th district race became a contest of the Democratic progressive mainstream versus the party’s left with Clyburn and Hillary Clinton campaigning for Brown, and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) campaigning for Turner. A victory by the left would have further emboldened the activists creating schisms with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the White House.
Separately, Mike Carey, with Donald Trump’s active support, won a special election for the seat of a Republican incumbent in Ohio’s 15th district who quit. Carey defeated a large field including two state legislators.
Democratic strategists privately welcome Trump’s clout within the Republican party, believing a number of the non-incumbent candidates he’s endorsing will be weaker against a Democrat. Ohio’s 15th, centered in the Columbus suburbs and small towns, is Republican — Trump won it by 14 points last November — but Democrats think they have an outside shot in the November general election against a first-time candidate who has been a lobbyist.

This is unadulterated partisan bullshit, my friends. If you actually think Democrats “have an outside shot” at winning OH-15, would you care to wager $100 on that proposition? No? How about $20? $5?

Of course not. James Carville himself wouldn’t bet a nickel on the chance of a Democrat winning that district, and the whole point of Hunt blowing sunshine up their skirts is to help the DCCC with their lackluster fundraising, given the near-certain likelihood of them losing the House majority in next year’s midterm elections. Al Hunt is a hack, see, because if he wasn’t a hack, he’d be out of work. Hackery pays his bills.

Al Hunt is still employed for the same reason Andrew Cuomo isn’t resigning, despite being credibly accused of sexually harassing 11 different women. Cuomo’s got the magic “D” beside his name, and has the good fortune of being in New York, where it’s nearly impossible for a Democrat to lose. Recall that Anthony Weiner, after being forced to resign from Congress over his first sex scandal, was actually the front-runner in the campaign to become mayor of New York City until his second sex scandal erupted. It was not until his third sex scandal sent him to federal prison that Weiner’s political career was finally over. Well, I say “finally,” but in New York who knows? There are so few New York Democrats without felony records, Weiner might yet mount a comeback.

All of this is merely further illustration of the symbiotic relationship between Democratic politicians and sycophantic liberal hacks in the media, like Al Hunt — “Democratic Party operatives with bylines” who, as Ed Driscoll remarks, “spent the last quarter century propping up Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky scandal, defending Al Gore and his doomsday rhetoric, pretending that John Kerry was the second coming of Patton, that Obama was the second coming of God, and that Hillary and Biden had track records worthy of the White House.”

And I’ve still got that $100, if Al Hunt really believes Democrats have a shot at winning OH-15. But he doesn’t. He just prints whatever partisan bullshit his good buddy James Carville feeds him.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Guess the governor’s “magic D” couldn’t save him. Cuomo announced his resignation today.




 

Category: Media Bias

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