Pass the smelling salts. Wednesday afternoon Pacific Time (early evening Eastern Time), someone at the Los Angeles Times actually noticed something quite a bit less than perfect about the Democratic Party and its politicians.
Okay, it's an analysis piece at the Politics Now blog by Political Editor Cathleen Decker. But most LA Times "analyses" are insufferably far to the left and consist of some combination of blatant falsehoods, mean-spirited attacks on Republicans and conservatives, bowing down to the pseudo-science of climate change, and effusive praise of Democrats even as they fail. Thus, Decker's piece sticks out like a red-clad University of Louisville fan sitting in the deep-blue University of Kentucky cheering section. Excerpts follow (bolds are mine):
For Democrats, politicians in handcuffs point to image problems
Americans have low—exceedingly low—opinions about government. It’s supposed to stay out of their hair until needed, at which point it’s supposed to solve problems instantly. For the full range of American needs, government is supposed to provide only two things: competence and honor.
For Democrats who have long championed government as a force for social good, competence is perhaps the biggest potential victim of the rocky rollout of the Obamacare insurance program.
Millions of Americans will gain coverage under the plan—some enjoying insurance for the first time—but their voices have been drowned out by the months-long criticisms of websites that wouldn’t work, deadlines that had to be extended, exceptions that had to be made.
... The other component—honor—has come sharply into question this week, and not in a good way for the image of Democrats. Handcuffs are almost always a bad sign.
On Wednesday, California state Sen. Leland Yee was arrested as part of a public corruption investigation, the FBI confirmed. No charges were detailed, and Yee was due in court later Wednesday. A Democrat from San Francisco, Yee has been seeking the job of secretary of state, the office that runs California’s elections.
Yee is the third California Democrat caught in seemingly unrelated criminal scandals this brief year.
Sen. Rod Wright of Inglewood was convicted in January of perjury and voter fraud stemming from charges that he had lied about his address on voter registration and candidacy papers ...
... At almost the same time that Yee was taken into custody, a Southern Democrat, Mayor Patrick Cannon of Charlotte, N.C., was arrested on a federal complaint that charged him with theft, bribery and extortion.
Cannon actually resigned a few hours before Decker's post appeared. Additionally, a New York State Representative from Queens, Democrat William Scarborough, had his office raided Wednesday over the trifling issue of his having received $290,000 in per-diem allowances in an 11-year period for trips to Albany (he would have had to stay overnight more than 150 nights per year every year to have earned all those per-diems). I know, Cath; it's hard to keep up. Trust me.
Of course it remains to be seen whether what Decker wrote gets into the paper's print edition. The likelihood doesn't seem very great, given that there wasn't even a link to her writeup on the Times's online home page at 12:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
But the mere appearance of a negative take on Democrats at anything published by the Times is a sight for tired eyes.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
