NYT Pines For Daschle, Grudgingly Admits Thune Victory
| :::::::: | Mr. Daschle was defeated by John Thune, a telegenic former congressman and... | :::::::: |
Ah, it starts. See, Thune isn't just a former congressman, he's a telegenic former congressman. He looks gooooooooood on TV, they think. Hmmm.
| :::::::: | The outcome will strip Washington of one of its more familiar Democratic faces. Soft-spoken and gentle, Mr. Daschle has led the Senate Democrats for 10 years, two years longer than his most famous predecessor, Lyndon Johnson. Until John Kerry emerged this year as the Democratic nominee, Mr. Daschle was the de facto spokesman for the national Democratic Party. | :::::::: |
Daschle was "[s]oftspoken and gentle"? How soon we forget Mr. Daschle's performances in 2001 and 2002 while the Democrats held the Senate majority. I seem to recall a number of times Senator Daschle was anything but soft-spoken. (If I get time today, I'll find some links.)
| :::::::: | "People believe in him," Senator Jon Corzine, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a recent interview, describing how upset Democrats would be should Mr. Daschle lose. "He's a good leader. He's a guy that holds us to a strong moral compass." | :::::::: |
Note to Senator Corzine: Apparently more people don't believe in him than do, so you might want to re-assess this judgement.
| :::::::: | They agreed early on that if anyone could send Mr. Daschle into retirement, it would be Mr. Thune, a former high school basketball star whose good looks and Christian conservative credentials give him strong appeal here. | :::::::: |
Ah, so it's not Mr. Thune's vision and leadership that give him appeal, it's his "good looks and Christian conservative credentials" that do the trick. So how about it, NYT? If he was dumb as a post and couldn't lead the way to the men's room, he'd have still been elected? On the basis of good hair, white teeth, and the ability to recite the "Lord's Prayer" by heart?
| :::::::: | He ran a tough, aggressive race, and made no bones about making the race a referendum on Mr. Daschle, attacking the senator on everything from his record on abortion to lobbying activities of Mr. Daschle's wife, Linda. Democrats complained bitterly, and Mr. Daschle said Tuesday that the race was "a lot more negative a campaign than I have seen in a long time." | :::::::: |
Two years and four years constitute a "long time" for Mr. Daschle? The last couple of elections - not to mention the rhetoric from the Democratic side of the aisle - have seemed quite negative to me.
| :::::::: | As a result, Election Day dawned in South Dakota with a last-minute surprise: a federal court ruling that Republican poll workers had intimidated Native American voters in one county, Charles Mix, by jotting down their license plate numbers and following them from the polls. United States District Court Judge Lawrence Piersol issued a temporary restraining order at about 1:45 a.m. after an emergency hearing requested by the Daschle campaign, which said its poll workers spotted the Republicans' tactics. By mid-morning Tuesday, Senator Daschle pronounced himself "very pleased," saying, "We know of no new reports of voter intimidation." | :::::::: |
And here, at last, we come to the NYT's masterpiece. A report of a "...federal court ruling that Republican poll workers had intimidated Native American voters..." that casually neglects to pass along some very important points. See, they want you to assume that this ruling came out of nowhere - an unbiased, spontaneous judicial response to confirmed acts of intimidation by evil Republican operatives. Let's get some of the facts, shall we?
First, the ruling came as a result of an 11th hour lawsuit in which Daschle personally sued Thune personally. A blogger managed to get a wifi signal while sitting in the courtroom and provided reports in real time, but the essence of the complaint is this: A former Dean operative was put on the stand as the witness to this attempted intimidation and it amounted to a lawyer rolling his eyes. 5 instances - yes, five - of a Republican poll challenger walking out after some voters had voted and writing down a license plate. After the voters had voted. Oh, it gets better. Senator Daschle not only decided to bring this case before the court on the night before the elections, he did so in the courtroom of a judge he had helped get onto the bench and who just so happened to have been the lawyer that helped Daschle sue to get put into office in 1978. I cannot think of a more clear-cut case of conflict of interest and one where the judge should have recused himself. Not counting on the power of the blogosphere, both he and Daschle thought they could get away with this and have it hidden until after the election. Score one more for the bloggers. The case is going to be appealed (although I'm not sure if Thune will do that, now, or simply let it slide since the people of SD have seen through it).
The Old Gray Lady just can't let that go, though. Should be interesting to see if they want to rebuild their credibility after squandering it these past several months.
posted by Ric James at 08:26
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