As I watch the opposition writhe in the agonies of their electoral defeat, I find myself wondering which is more insufferable: their arrogance in presuming that they are the gold standard for human reason and decency or their ignorance in not understanding the nature of their own politics, which has become the politics of bigotry and reaction. I was watching Wolf Blitzer interview the defeated but intelligent Martin Frost and three apparently brain-dead leftists about the cause of the Democrats' defeat. According to Al Franken, who pretty well spoke for the other leftists present (Jesse Jackson Jr. and Loretta Sanchez), the press was to blame (no, I'm not making this up). The press should have done a better job explaining to the public that Republicans were wrong on the facts. I ask myself, how can you reach middle age in this life and think that politics or any serious human conflict is about either side's inability to understand the facts? Consider what that reveals about Al Franken's contempt for 59 million Americans. They're stupid. Otherwise they would have voted for Kerry.

Of course, in Franken's view the reason they're so stupid is that they listen to Rush Limbaugh instead of Al Franken. Perhaps Franken needs to listen to Rush Limbaugh. If he did, he might learn how the rest of us see leftists like him. If he listened, he might reconsider the attitudes that produced his present predicament. He might learn. The only way anyone learns really is by listening. Last night Rush Limbaugh gave a speech at the Claremont Institute in California in which he analyzed the plight of the Franken crew. Here is a summary by his staff:

"Democrats cannot look forward now; they look back to the souplines of the 1930s. They have positioned themselves to only gain when America fails, economically and militarily. What is good for America is bad for them; and what is bad for America, they say, benefits their political gains.  (Gephardt said each 100-point decline in the Stock Market would result in a seat in the House of Congress.) During their 40-year monopoly (of Congress), they became fat, lazy, and assuming. Partisan press enabled them with their biased support, and they were never challenged. They did not have to debate and defend their positions." 

The most important thing for people like Al Franken to understand is that the Democrats have become the party of bigotry and reaction. Because they think of themselves as progressives even though they have no new ideas, because the ideas they do have are to cling to the past, they are unable to make a reasoned argument in defense of their positions. That's why they label everything they disagree with "lies."

Limbaugh also said this: "What is left as bastions of liberalism are the public school systems and the colleges and universities." I think he was being a littlle optimistic. But if you're interested in what we're doing about this bastion, click here.