Here we go again: Something good happens for the Republicans, and they inflate it into earth-shattering significance — aided and abetted by lazy punditheads engaging in their usual hyperbole.
Last week, Democrats lost a close special election in Florida, after which the GOP hopped on their anti-Obamacare horses and kicked off a stampede. Karl Rove and Rancid Pieface have both gone on record predicting doom for anyone with a "D" after their names this fall. And Beltway commentators, lemming-like, have followed suit.
Meanwhile, Obamacare just celebrated its 5 millionth enrollee — and we still haven't a clue, four years after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, how the Republicans are going to take that coverage away. Or how they're going to revoke the rule on pre-existing conditions, or on young adults staying on their parents' health plans, or on any of the other myriad benefits that the law bestows. Hm.
Long story short, expect this narrative to change a million times between now and November. And sadly, expect everyone to have forgotten this month's GOP glee by then — first, because we'll all be deep into our new predictions, and second, because this happens all the time, and nobody ever pays a price for it.
Really! Remember when Rove said Republicans would win big back in 2006? Or when Peggy Noonan and George F. Will said Willard Mitt Romney would beat President Obama? Their reasoning: "It feels like it." Will even predicted Willard would rack up 321 electoral votes. Whoops.
We cats will stick with Nate Silver, thank you, who yesterday skewered the Noonans and Wills of the world anew when he said, "My chief problem with [opinion journalism] is that it doesn’t seem to abide by the standards of either journalistic or scientific objectivity. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to abide by any standard at all."
When Nate tells us to worry, then we'll worry. In the meantime, we cats will focus on getting Democrats to the polls in November. That will make us PURR.
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