Triumph of the Hacks

The Giffords assassination attempt is making morons out of many a political reporter.

Dancin' David Weigel writes on Slate:

Politico quotes "veteran Democratic operative" [sic] today:

One veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did.

"They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers," said the Democrat. "Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people."

The quoted "Dem" seems to believe that the Oklahoma City bombing wasn't the work of anti-government people.

Meanwhile, Weigel opines:

Dick Morris wouldn't have been much of an operative if he'd admitted what he wrote in his 1995 memo to reporters at the time. This Democrat's willingness to give a blind quote about how to capitalize on the murder of several people speaks well of the Politico team's reporting skills, less well of said Democrat's savvy.

Weigel's willingness to assume that the "Dem" quoted is someone other than Pat Caddell or Lanny Davis speaks poorly of Weigel's intelligence. But maybe the Dem's Zell Miller, or Mickey Kaus even! Why would Weigel take Politico's word that the unnamed "veteran Democratic operative" is even a current Dem? Plainly, it's not someone who has the ear of the Obama Administration, or the best interests of the Administration at heart. Rather, it's someone who seeks neutralize criticism of Republican extremists.

By the way, the entire Politico article is worth a read, if only for this quote:

Conservative intellectual William F. Buckley denounced the conspiracy theories and darker rantings of the John Birch Society, this Democrat said, "but these guys don’t seem to be willing to do that."

In this morning's incoherent FOX News Channel rant (referenced below), Wan Juilliams mentioned, apropos of nothing, Buckley's supposed denunciation of Birchers. I suspect Wan's attack on Dems came from reading the Politico article while smoking Bill O'Reilly's crack.