One can but surmise how “fast” Mr. Bradley’s analysis may be, but it is certainly half-blind. To an American looking down on politics, the imperial Lumbardian imperative, “Winning’s not everything, it’s the only thing,” is not the only thing in play. There’s the virtue of sportsmanship, the evaluative ethic of “how you play the game.” And for the conservative slouching towards crestfallen, there’s the pruning proverb of Victor Frankl, “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.”
Unlike Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Mr. Limbaugh et al. cannot arrange surreptitious land-deals. Unlike Boss Tweed they have no patronage jobs to proffer. They can summon no “quid” for the “pro quo”, nor extra “tit” for any “tat”. All they wield is a potential of public opinion across a few million on-off switches and the notion of individual free-will.
To frame Mr. Limbaugh et. al as power-brokers is foolish. Rather are they as acolytes bearing their lamps on America’s founding axioms.
If there be anything “dwindling”, it is not the light from these lamps, nor the truths we hold as self-evident, but the affection of nominal Americans for the Declaration and Constitution on which they stand.
