Infinite Monkeys

Romney-Schomney: Or, Wake Me When Zombie Wendell Willkie Gets Into the Race

I dislike the inside-baseball jockeying two years before the next presidential election. It's boring, and it isn't very useful. Had the 2004 election been held among the nascent Blogosphere in, say, January 2003, George W. Bush would have crushed himself by a 99 percent margin. Had the contest been held a year later, we'd be lamenting the failures of the Dean administration today.

The previous assertions assume two things, weakly, on a Sunday morning with but three cups of coffee: 1) only the Blogosphere votes and 2) nobody except blogger-types really gives a damn who's running for president the day before New Year's 2007.

Does that make sense? No? Good.

Because all of that was really just throat-clearing in advance of slapping around our friend Hugh Hewitt a little bit.

Now, Hugh is a sharp man, a wise man. Hugh has staked his good name on the power of the new media to sway the political debate. And Hugh may be right. He's certainly moved a good bit of traffic our way, God bless 'im. And everyone knows the Monkeys are all about the high-minded political discourse.

But Hugh sometimes says things that are... well, disingenuous. For example:

[T]he [Boston] Globe is trying to push me into the Romney camp, for reasons I cannot understand.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Hugh's next book is titled A Mormon in the White House?: 10 Things Every Conservative Should Know about Mitt Romney. Yes, yes, it's a fairly neutral title. I freely acknowledge it does not say "10 Reasons Every Conservative Should Vote for Mitt Romney." But the book, which I've obviously not read, purports to "explain Romney, his faith, and the importance of that debate in a headline-making and election-shaping opening shot in the campaign before the campaign."

Sounds interesting, no? Such a book might not put Hugh squarely in "the Romney camp," but it sure puts him in the campaign's near orbit.

Of course, I may be wrong. I usually am. In that case, I eagerly await Hugh's follow-up, A Megalomaniac in the White House? 10 Things Every Conservative Should Know About John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich.

Posted by H.L. Monkey at December 31, 2006 01:06 PM