I miss Larry Hayes. When he was editorial page editor of The Journal Gazette, he had a way of pouring out liberal diatribes that gave my day a fist-through-the-wall, spittle-on-the-chin, howl-in-the-soul start. He could always help me get to work wide awake and ready. And I certainly tried to return the favor for him from time to time, to make sure he was teeth-grindingly alert on his drive home. Since his departure, the JG editorial page seems somehow diminished to me. Oh, they're just as wrong just as often as they always were, but the fires seem banked a little.
But I do still have Dan Carpenter, the reliably liberal op-ed columnist for The Indianapolis Star. His most recent column dismissed GOP candidates Dan Coats, Todd Young and Jackie Walorski as "mediocrities with money" who are trying to disgrace Congress with their presence with the assistance of "massive sums" from "largely anonymous sources intent on buying back Washington." It takes a lot of nerve for someone who accepts the rogues gallery of knaves and clowns the Obama team has as congressional committee chairs to be throwing the "mediocre" label around. Mediocrity would be a distinct improvement. And it's credible to just repeat the Democratic pot's calling the Republican kettle full of anonymous donations?
And here he comes to the defense of the virtuous Washington establishment this hateful trio wants to dismantle:
In all three cases, the Republicans are conjuring the green-faced, pointy-hatted image of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi while their Democratic targets are protesting "Nancy Who?"
Pelosi, in fact, is neither a radical nor a lightweight. The first female speaker is one of the most accomplished people in American politics and, like the first black president, unafraid to try out big ideas on entrenched interests.
"Big ideas"? That's how we should describe the ever growing government that is spending us into bankruptcy on schemes that were tired the third and fourth times they were tried?
Thanks, Dan. I won't be falling asleep at the wheel on my drive home tonight.
