Ed Morrissey of HotAir notes GOP problem, but not smart enough to figure out a solution

Ed Morrissey of HotAir offers "An end to fringe mainstreaming?" (link) in which he worries about the backlash from the Democrats and the MSM over the Van Jones resignation. He also shows that solving problems isn't exactly his forte:

...we can expect the media to hold Republicans to the standards the conservative punditry imposed on Van Jones, and to be a lot more aggressive about it than they were with Jones himself... it means that no one who ever expressed public support for Birthers to get the benefit of the doubt. The two conspiracy theories are different, but they both are entirely speculative and imagine dark conspiracies at the highest orbits of power, and neither have any actual direct evidence for support. Anyone who signed a Birther petition can expect to get bypassed for political appointments in a Republican White House with a halfway-decent vetting team, strictly on the basis of politics, in the wake of Jones’ resignation... [The media] will use the Van Jones Standard to launch attacks on high-profile conservatives, looking for everything from John Birch Society membership to militias and Birtherism as well... To some extent, this isn’t a bad trend. The nation could improve with a little more disavowing of conspiracy theorists and political extremists, although they tend to degrade into very damaging witch hunts more often than not.

I already discussed here what respectability-seeking, pearl-clutching hacks like Morrissey (and many others) just aren't smart enough to figure out. Regarding Morrissey himself, I've pointed out that what he wrote was directly contradicted by Hawaiian law. He refused to correct his false statement but instead chose to continue to lie just as badly as the MSM does. If, instead of doing that, he would simply tell the truth he could show how the MSM has lied. He could then use that to impeach the MSM's credibility when they go after more vulnerable members of the GOP. Maybe Morrissey wants a much smaller GOP that portrays a good portion of their base as insane and he wants to help the MSM get the GOP to that point. More likely, he (and all the others) have neither the intelligence nor the integrity to figure out how to get out of the situation they helped make for themselves.

Mon, 09/07/2009 - 06:10 · · Importance: 4