...consider
this excerpt, from a Times piece on Wendy Long, the Conservative/Republican Senate candidate opposing the reprehensible Kristie Gillibrand in New York this fall:
Ms. Long’s ascension suggests a continuing interest among conservatives in cultivating candidates whose youth, or fitness levels, or musical tastes, or in the instance of Ms. Long, urbane femininity, might blunt the impact of unpalatable social ideologies. (One wonders if, going forward, the Republican Party will be increasingly wary of candidates who look too much as though they believe what Todd Akin thinks.)
For openers, I suppose it is OK to reduce a woman of accomplishment and stature (Dartmouth-educated lawyer and mother of two) to a caricature, if she's a Republican woman. Or if the article in question is written by another women. Cattiness is a virtue within liberal circles; it explains the survival of the likes of Maureen Dowd, for instance, who lives on nothing but.
It's the unpalatable social ideologies that get me, more than the idea that the Republican party is simply trying to put a pretty face on its "ugly" theology (Todd Akin, now and forever). And what social ideologies does Gina Bellafante, author of this particular piece, consider to be "unpalatable"?
She goes through them in order: Long is a Catholic, 100% pro-life, who bought her son a rifle for Christmas.
Baffling, I suppose, to an urbane sophisticate like Gina B.
New York's congressional delegation is split 21-8, D/R. Dominant, perhaps, but 13 of those 29 are in New York City, which has an 11-2 D/R split.
Take out the city, and the remainder of the state is 10/7 D/R. And that number may be
deceiving:
As a whole, Upstate New York is roughly equally divided in Federal elections between Democrats and Republicans. In 2004, John Kerry defeated George W. Bush by fewer than 1,500 votes (1,553,246 votes to 1,551,971) in the Upstate Region.
Which would lead one to believe that Ms. Long does in fact represent the viewpoints of a larger amount of New York state than the provincial Gina B. realizes. And while yes, we cannot pretend NYC doesn't vote, doesn't it seem reasonable that one of the two parties should offer a candidate for statewide office that does more than reflect the viewpoints of one the most liberal cities in America, and instead reaches out to all voters from Tottenville to Massena?
To Miss Bellefante, these people don't exist. Or shouldn't. And if they do, their viewpoints are so repellent as not to deserve representation, or even discussion. A funny position for a woman who writes about "social and cultural issues" for the New York Times.
Does she not fit perfectly in with
the final words of the NYT's Ombudsman, Arthur Brisbane?
Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.
Coda:
Brisbane also wrote:
...the hive on Eighth Avenue is powerfully shaped by a culture of like minds — a phenomenon, I believe, that is more easily recognized from without than from within.
The new executive editor of the Times, Jill Abramson,
denounced Brisbane's column as soon as it was printed:
"In our newsroom we are always conscious that the way we view an issue in New York is not necessarily the way it is viewed in the rest of the country or world. I disagree with Mr. Brisbane's sweeping conclusions"
Either Jill doesn't read Gina's work, or honestly thinks her assessment of Wendy Long is in line with the thinking of the majority of New York residents statewide.
Which vindicates Brisbane on both counts. And bodes ill for any hope of future dispassionate reporting within the Old Grey Whore...
