Sunday, November 19, 2006

And the Whining Begins

The folks over at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (a misnomer if I ever saw one) are already whining that the media isn't being "fair" to Grandma Pelosi.

The spite girls are back in town. It isn't so much a matter of substance. You can argue that talking about the majority leader race is worthwhile and that it says something about Pelosi's leadership style. The Carville sideswipe at Dean is interesting. That's not the problem. It's that the patented 90's style smug, juvenile, derisive Kewl Kidz tone is once again ooozing through everything they say.

When did the "spite girls" leave town? Where have the clowns of F.A.I.R. been for the last six years? I've heard nothing but how stupid and dangerous George W. Bush is and more unfunny jokes about presidential syntax than I can even remember. This isn't even bringing up the nasty rumor mongering about how Laura Bush murdered her high school boyfriend or the more disgusting jokes, comments, and innuendos about the Bush twins.

No, what those oh-so-fair nuts at F.A.I.R. are upset about is that people are being so unfair to Grandma Pelosi when her handpicked House Majority Leader was rejected by other House members. More from the same cryfest:
It's as if all these unpleasant events of the last six years never happened and we are back in the days of endless cable bitch-fests filled with sniggering about unauthorized blow jobs and earth tones and "grown-ups" who eat PB&J's and travel with their favorite pillies.

I knew it would happen in one form or another. (We caught a glimpse of it with the John Kerry apology treatment.) The DC press corps hates having to criticize Republicans. Republicans make them feel all icky and call them liberals (which they so, like, aren't!) I confess, however, that I'm a little bit awed by how smoothly they have transitioned back into their assigned roles. I thought there might be a moment or two of cognitive dissonance as they went from grim and serious reports about terrorism and war to shallow personality politics and tabloid character assassination. I assumed they would at least wait until the presidential campaign took off to contrast the manly Republican Alpha with the loser Omega Dem, but I guess I didn't realize how much they've missed their fast times at DC High.

It's a coffee-spewing moment if ever there was one. "The DC press corps hates having to criticize Republicans"?! Since when? Have the people at F.A.I.R. just not read newspapers or watched television for the last six years? Or were they too busy counting the number of times Keith Olbermann called Bill O'Reilly the worst person on the planet to take any notice?

What galls me when I see whining like this starting up is that it truly is Clinton redux. We've seen this before. Every misstep by Grandma Pelosi will be characterized as "hatred" for her. At the feminist screech blogs, they'll be all a-twitter about "misogyny" and how no one was that hard on Newt (just Google "Newt Gingrich" and see what comes up there).

I stated in this post that I hate the patronizing tone Pelosi was likely to get as the first woman Speaker of the House. I hate the superfluous comments about her face and hair and possible Botox use because such things are not germaine to governing. I don't care what color suit she wears the first day of the new Congress and I really don't care how many grandchildren she has. None of those things matter.

But it's funny how moonbats like the guys at F.A.I.R. don't seem upset when Pelosi reminds us for the umpteenth time that she's a grandma but whine when the DC press corps notice that her hand-picked House Majority Leader gets trounced. Are the moonbats really going to be this sexist for the next two years? Do they think Pelosi got to be Speaker without a little cutthroat politicking of her own? Puh-lease.

UPDATE: See also this temper tantrum at Glenn Greenwald's site for more Grandma Pelosi boo-hooing.