THE COVINGTON DEBACLE II

What lesson should we take from Covington?  That the Democratic Party Steno Pool American news media is an increasingly sad and sick joke should be obvious to any truly objective person.  You can't botch a story any worse than the DPSPANM botched this one and their repeated attempts to deflect and their refusal to admit any failure on their part only drives the point home.

Why did they fail so miserably?  Easy.  To Caitlin Flanagan, there's one story that drives the DPSPANM these days and only one.  Trump.

I am prompted to issue my own ethics reminders for The New York Times. Here they are: You were partly responsible for the election of Trump because you are the most influential newspaper in the country, and you are not fair or impartial. Millions of Americans believe you hate them and that you will causally harm them. Two years ago, they fought back against you, and they won. If Trump wins again, you will once again have played a small but important role in that victory.

But I've got one more.

Eighteen years ago after the death of my father, my sisters, my brother and I were sitting around pondering the fact that we were the old people now, retelling a family story or two and otherwise talking about this and that, as tends to happen on occasions like this  When the political stuff came out and since my siblings are all good leftists, I stood out like a sore thumb.

"Are you a Republican?" my oldest sister asked me at one point.

"No, I'm a conservative," I told her.  "Those terms are not interchangeable." My sister nodded as if the idea had never occurred to her before.

Granted, I'd voted Republican ever since I started voting.  Kind of the only way you can go if you think abortion is as evil as slavery and you take the Christian religion seriously.  But to me, the GOP and Major League Conservatism^TM were basically the same thing.

Fast forward to 2008.  The GOP presidential candidate that year was John McCain while the Democrats ran that jug-eared Chicagoan who eventually ended up winning.

Fast forward four more years.  The GOP presidential candidate was former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who used to participate in gay pride parades and who used to call himself pro-choice.  But Major League Conservatism^TM assured us that Willard was now a genuine, honest-to-God, no-fooling Certified Conservative.

Trust us.

The jug-eared Chicagoan won a second term.

I'm not stupid.  I know that Major League Conservatism^TM never made any serious effort whatsoever to move on abortion or any other issue important to people like me.  Oh, they said they supported us 567,998% but talk was all they ever did.

Fast forward four more years where there's suddenly a Republican primary candidate that Major League Conservatism^TM didn't control.  Couldn't control.  A candidate who sounded, for all the world, like he intended to get conservative things done.

Major League Conservatism^TM was horrified at the prospect of his election.  National Review made that clear from the start while people like George Will, Bill Kristol, Erick Erickson and several conservative bloggers threw away whatever conservative bona fides they once had in their revulsion at the ickyness of Donald J. Trump.

Who won.

Come to find out that Donald J. Trump has, in fact, gotten conservative things done.  Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.  Does anyone seriously think that President McCain or President Romney would have moved the embassy or stood by Brett Kavanaugh as long as President Trump did?

Or stood by him at all?  Or even nominated him?

That's why Trump won.  But there's more...