7.17.2005
Those Elitist Liberals, At It Again
So, I am mildly interested in Matt Bai's article on the framing craze in today's New York Times (go to bugmenot if you need a login name and password), but what really irritated me is this passage:
The facts of the filibuster fight hadn't necessarily favored them; in reality, the constitutional principle of ''checks and balances'' on which the Democrats' case was based refers to the three branches of government, not to some parliamentary procedure, and it was actually the Democrats who had broken with Senate tradition by using the filibuster to block an entire slate of judges. (''An irrelevancy beyond the pay grade of the American voter,'' Garin retorted when I pointed this out.)
Garin didn't need to say this; he could have said "these are details, it's the principle at stake that matters." Sigh. "Leading Democratic pollsters" apparently have no qualms about insulting "the American voter." But I guess "the American voter" doesn't read the New York Times. If the Democrats really want to reframe the debate, maybe they could start by not insulting people.
The facts of the filibuster fight hadn't necessarily favored them; in reality, the constitutional principle of ''checks and balances'' on which the Democrats' case was based refers to the three branches of government, not to some parliamentary procedure, and it was actually the Democrats who had broken with Senate tradition by using the filibuster to block an entire slate of judges. (''An irrelevancy beyond the pay grade of the American voter,'' Garin retorted when I pointed this out.)
Garin didn't need to say this; he could have said "these are details, it's the principle at stake that matters." Sigh. "Leading Democratic pollsters" apparently have no qualms about insulting "the American voter." But I guess "the American voter" doesn't read the New York Times. If the Democrats really want to reframe the debate, maybe they could start by not insulting people.
