Lori Sturdevant's Selective Amnesia

Joseph Goebbels famously said that if you repeat a big lie often enough, people will eventually believe it.

My corollary (via Orwell, I suppose) - if you ignore an inconvenient truth long enough, it'll fade from popular memory.

Which is just one of the fisking moments in yesterday's Lori Sturdevant column.

Did you know that nasty, "partisan" politics started in 2000?

These two new books sound an alarm about decisionmaking trends in Washington, just in time for a midterm congressional election that holds the greatest potential in more than a decade to alter the lineup of congressional decisionmakers.

"Fight Club" focuses on the U.S. House and showcases Eilperin's skill as an interviewer. She holds the Republican majority to account, but debunks the notion that all it will take to restore healthy deliberation to the House is a return to Democratic control.

Catch that?

The Demcrats are the masters of "healthy deliberation".

All that stonewalling against Reagan? The way they buried George H.W. Bush's attempts at reform?

Never happened, in Lori Sturdevant's world...

...no, wait. That's not fair...

...no, wait. It is fair, but not nearly the whole story. The partisan media wants to erase the volumes of examples that refute their thesis by pretenting it never happened. By pretending that politics before 2000 (or maybe 1994) was a smart, deliberative, gentlemanperson's pastime.

What they want most of all is a return to the world that existed in the United States from about 1945 to 1980 (and in Minnesota until 1998); a world where Democrats ruled, and where Republicans basically acted like Democrats with better suits. Never mind all that pesky history in between 1980 and 2000 (and between 1998 and 2002, here in Minnesota).

A world where everyone falls obediently into line behind their flag.

But only if they can get rid of all of us pesky dissidents, first:

"We're not going back to the fair way of doing things," the venerable Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., told her. "Democrats will say [to Republicans], you did it, now you bastards enjoy it."

I haven't read the book in question, so I have no idea if Julia Eilperin's book ignores all of political history before 2000 (or 1994), or if Lori Sturdevant merely finds it inconvenient.

"Broken Branch," the more scholarly tome, scolds both chambers. It details how Republican leaders have denied a meaningful lawmaking role to minority Democrats and their own moderate members. The results, they say, have been a run of bad legislation, a heyday for special interests, unchecked presidential power, and the disgust and effective disenfranchisement of millions of Americans.

The disconnect is painfully obvious.

To some of us, politics is about electing candidates who represent what we believe. These candidates then go to Saint Paul or Washington and argue their case against people who believe other things. Depending on how many people representing each belief are meeting, and how effective they are at pressing their (and their constituents') cases (or, with Bill Frist in mind, how ineffective), some form of compromise emerges.

In the world of Lori Sturdevant and her ilk (and the Strib is not only crowded with such, but supports even more of same), it's different; the people realize by acclamation a monolithic vision that's "best for them", and elect leaders (sometimes from hereditary dynasties) who all fall in line behind that vision. The vision - a "better Minnesota" built by constant government intervention, one where government is the active or even primary engine of "progress", in this case -guides all politics, all public discourse. Any who don't share that vision are "partisan" and "divisive".

See how it works?

Want proof? Sturdevant continues:

Both books argue for change in the way congressional districts are drawn. Gerrymandering -- the practice of drawing political maps for partisan advantage -- is out of control, and should be reined in, the authors argue. One possibility: Take the task out of state legislators' hands, and give it to independent commissions.

That's right - we'll have experts do the job.

Experts appointed by whom? People who share the vision!

I wonder if Lori Sturdevant felt this way back before 1990, when decades of gerrymandered DFL control was extended for another decade by "moderate" "Republican" Arne Carlson, who caved in to give the DFL an apportionment that vastly overstated their influence in the Twin Cities suburbs, effectively extending DFL control of the House and of our Congressional delegation for a decade.

Anyone recall, by any chance, Sturdevant's feelings about this - dare we say - partisan manipulation of the process?

Posted by Mitch at August 28, 2006 06:19 AM | TrackBack