What Happened to Actual Debate?
This past week, we’ve seen politicians of both parties defining political debate downward. This week, the issue that’s allowed them to sink to new lows is the Dubai Port ‘Scandal’, which isn’t a scandal at all. Daniel Henninger, writing for OpinionJournal.com, has noticed too. Here’s a glimpse into his column:
One would not have thought it possible, but Washington’s political class is defining our politics down. After nearly seven days of elevating the Cheney bird-hunting accident to the level of a national crisis, now comes this week’s flap over managing the ports. To be sure, the matter of secure U.S. ports trumps the hunting of quail as an affaire d’état. But it was the strikingly low quality of the politicians’ commentary and behavior that attracted notice.
Within hours, if not minutes, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Rep. Robert Menendez announced “emergency” legislation to “ban foreign governments from controlling operations at our ports.” No matter that most of the current operators of our ports are from Denmark, Britain and, uh-oh, China. Chuck Schumer: “It’s hard to believe that this administration would be so out of touch with the American people’s national security concerns.” Yes, that is hard to believe.
It’s worth noting that it was Bill Clinton that was president when China gained control of several West Coast ports. As I said last night, Democrats think that we don’t remember anything beyond last week. We didn’t hear anything from the co-president then, did we? We didn’t hear anything from Schumer, either, did we?
What we have here is the dawn of the new Yosemite Sam school of national politics. Put any news event in front of our politicians now, Hurricane Katrina, Terri Schiavo, Dick Cheney’s quail or this week the ports, and like Bugs Bunny’s hair-triggered nemesis they’ll start spraying the landscape with wild remarks and opinions decoupled from what is knowable about these events.
This week has reminded me of an episode of Hogan’s Heroes. In this episode, the POWs are in a hotel bar as waiters for some hotshot generals. Newkirk starts throwing smokebombs on the floor. As people start looking for the door out of the room, Newkirk runs around hollaring “PANIC…PANIC!!!”
This week, Congress is panicking while journalists are running articles that are the equivalent of Newkirk hollaring “Panic!!!”
It’s been a pathetic sight, a sight that can only be defeated by electing senators and representatives who pay alot less attention to the Agenda Media outlets. Remember that this November when you go to the polls.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing