Schwarzenegger, The Strib, and the

Schwarzenegger, The Strib, and the Seven Deadly Sins - Today's Star/Tribune editorial about the California Recall goes beyond the usual Strib fare.

We're used to the smug, classist little diatribes the Strib inflicts on the readership. Today's piece is very, very bad; in it, the Strib editors exhibit not only preening entitlement and smug arrogance, but also rank hypocrisy. We'll get to that in a bit.

But today's piece is worse. Much worse. I wrote a long, detailed "fisking" of the editorial - and realized that it didn't go nearly far enough. Today's editorial goes beyond bad - to the point that we have to use metaphysical units of measurement to judge it.

For today's editorial exhibits all seven of the deadly sins - Pride, Anger, Gluttony, Lust, Envy, Greed and Sloth.

Follow me, here:

Greed - The article starts badly:

Most parents have witnessed a version of the Toys "R" Us scene in which a child, caught up in the frenzy of toy overload, cries out, "Mommy, I want it, and I want it now!"

California politics, always a raucous affair, has become over the last 30 years more shrill, impatient and petulant, more of a toy-store experience. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ascendance to California's governorship is the latest episode. Voters in the largest state knew what they didn't want -- more Gray Davis, whom they judged an unlikeable, indecisive politician of the worst sort, who had made a mess of things, although they weren't sure quite how.

Leave aside the preening sense of superiority (we'll get back to that under "Pride", below); the Strib has it backwards.

The voters aren't the children; the government of California is. It's a child that spent its already-too-large allowance, and lied about doing its homework. And the parents - the people - after years of permissive overindulgence, finally lowered the boom, and grounded little Gray.

The Strib Editorial Board acted the same way during last spring's budget wrangling at the Capitol; they joined institutional government in stomping its feet and screaming "give us more money. NOW!" And it's not working.

And boy, the spoiled little brat is howling away in his room!

Lust - Lust is extreme covetousness - and the Strib covets having things both ways, on two different fronts.

In the editorial, they invoke...De Tocqueville!

The best profile of today's angry American voter may have been best described 170 years ago by the astute observer Alexis de Tocqueville. He noticed a rising class of "eager and apprehensive men of small property [who] continually and in a thousand ways feel they might lose [it]."

Let's forget for a moment that the Strib's editorial board detests the notions of limited government that De Tocqueville so admired about American society in the early 19th century.

And the Strib's view of the "men of small property" varies - depending entirely on their choice at the polls. As we'll see in our next entry...

Anger - The Strib is comfortably smug that it knows what's good for the little guy: "Society's real have-nots tend not to vote, and when they do, as in Tuesday's election, tend not to vote for candidates like Schwarzenegger." But when the little guy - the "men of small property" that De Tocqueville referred to - get all uppity and start calling talk radio stations or recalling incompetent (Democrat) politicians? It's time to open a can of righteous patrician whoop-ass on the proles!

In modern terms, it's people who believe (often mistakenly) that they've made it wholly on their own and that, except for government's interference, everyone would follow their example. Government, thus, joins a lineup of villains that includes immigrants, terrorists, liberals and other bogeymen who conspire to take away the essence of American success.

California's ground is especially fertile for anger politics. Its cyclical economy, its über-populist system of initiative and recall, and its media-driven political discourse all combine to make the state increasingly ungovernable.

Did you get that, Little Guy? Vote for the Democrat, and you're a noble "have-not". Vote for a Republican, though, and the Strib will lump you in with the Birchers and the Montana Freemen!

And what's this "increasingly ungovernable" bilge? The recall initiative followed state law, and resulted in the orderly transition of power. No tanks in the streets. No firing squads. Of course, what the Strib means is "ungovernably by the Democrat".

This is the sort of bigotry that springs from hatred - the ultimate anger. And it's no less deadly a sin when you couch it in the condescending, patrician terms the Strib uses.

Envy - Even as the Strib insults it's opponents, it wants what they have:

Schwarzenegger is the latest successful product of the anger industry that now runs American politics...

"Dammit - if only our anger industry were winning!"

Gluttony - The Strib is a glutton for punishment:

[Minnesota's] sizable deficit would have been half as large had legislators of both major parties listened to Jesse Ventura.

Minnesota's deficit would have been nonexistent if they'd listened to the Republicans and held the line on squandering a decade's worth of surpluses on permanent spending!

Sloth - In this case, intellectual sloth:

Still, we wish Schwarzenegger well. Perhaps a rebound in the high-tech economy will do most of the work for him. Minnesotans know that celebrity hulks don't necessarily make bad governors.

Many states have budget problems -and an economic rebound (the one the Strib so fears) will fix most of them. Gray Davis added rapacious spending, a dose of lying to the people, and a "tax 'em all, let G-d sort 'em out" arrogance to the suppurating stew - and the people called him on it.

And it's also intellectually slothful to call Schwarzenegger a "Celebrity Hulk". He made a fortune in action movies, sure. He also made himself a quarter-billionaire as a businessman. Dismissing Schwarzenegger as a "celebrity hulk" is more or less like calling a successful businesswoman a "hot broad" - myopic and intellectually lazy for most, misleading and biased for a news organization.

Pride - Pride comes before all other sins; the Strib marinades in misplaced self-glorification:

It's the contradictory part that explains both Schwarzenegger's victory and his probable failure as governor: People pass measures that demand more government accomplishments, then eliminate the revenues to pay for them. Only in a movie -- or perhaps a political campaign -- could Schwarzenegger promise to erase a possible $27 billion deficit without a contribution from Tocqueville's class of middling and eternally fearful stakeholders.

So in this paragraph, the Strib:

• declares itself prescient to the point of clairvoyance
• calls itself wiser than the combined electorate of an entire state (again! Remember the tut-tutting when we elected Tim Pawlenty?)
• Seems to believe that it can revoke economics (as if lowering taxes in a rebounding economy won't in the end prove a net gain!)
• Psycholanalyzes the majority of this nation's voters - are they really all "middling and eternally fearful", or do they merely have a different idea on how their state - their state! - should work?

Are these not, in fact, the very definitions of excessive pride?

So as we see, the Star Tribune editorial board has sinned mightily. Repentance is the only answer!

Any bets on when we see it?

Posted by Mitch at October 10, 2003 10:17 AM