The Hollow Men

“It tells you something about the culture in which we live that in some quarters those who routinely champion abortion, even partial-birth abortion, are viewed as enlightened and morally sophisticated while those grieving the loss of their son, whom they took home for a night before burying, are mercilessly mocked,” Peter Wehner writes at Commentary. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the times,” and “journalists” for those times:

First it was Alan Colmes; now it is Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, who went on MSNBC to mock Rick Santorum for how he and his wife Karen dealt with the death of their son Gabriel. (A severe prenatal development led to his very early delivery, and Gabriel died two hours after his birth.)

We have former Speakers of the House who are praising constitutional assaults on Congress by the president; if we’re going to go full Weimar, we might as well have the journalists to match.

Or, maybe not. Walter Russell Mead believes that such power plays by the left betray a profound weakness in 2012:

Republicans then go into 2012 likely to hold the House and take the Senate, and with a solid chance of taking the White House as well.  For Democrats, this is shaping up as an election in which they try to limit losses: a far cry from the historic realignment they were dreaming of three short years ago.

Via Meadia is not in the soothsaying business; this is not intended as an election forecast.  But after months of horse race coverage in Iowa, it makes sense to step back from the day to day headlines and spend a little time thinking about how the big picture is starting to shape up.  The playing field is tilting away from the Democrats this year; after running the table in 2008, Democrats face losing it all this time around.

Which may explain much behind the recent rash choices by Obama, Robinson, Colmes and Pelosi: fear of losing it all is a powerful motivator. The GOP elite seems equally scared of success; will their base play the decisive factor, even with what ultimately will be a far from perfect candidate, whoever he ultimately turns out to be?

Related: “Remember this the next time they launch one of their bogus ‘new civility’ campaigns.”