Doughy Pantload: Then and Now

Lucienne Goldberg's wingnut manchild from September, 2004:

The herd that is our press

...

With Kerry, however, the national press was perfectly willing to let him sail into the Oval Office on his metaphorical swiftboat, never explaining the grotesque inconsistencies, flip-flops, waffles and panders that have punctuated his otherwise perfectly liberal record. In August, during the whole Swiftboat Vet brouhaha, the only "journalist" who managed to fire off a substantive factual question about Vietnam at Kerry was Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."

Were it not for the real alternative media, Kerry's game plan probably would have worked. Were it not for the tenacious attention of blogs like Instapundit and the Belmont Club, and for the mavericks of the conservative media, this story might never have made it onto the radar. For example, Alison Mitchell, the New York Times deputy national editor, admitted in Editor and Publisher, "I'm not sure that in an era of no-cable television we would even have looked into [the swiftboat story]." I'm sure that's true.

What remains to be seen is they've learned their lesson, or if I'll be writing media bias columns for years to come.

Lucienne Goldberg's wingnut manchild from yesterday:

The Trump lesson that Bush and Clinton should heed

For those of us who predicted the inevitable, watching Donald Trump verbally wander into a field of face-whacking garden rakes like Sideshow Bob fills one with a mixture of schadenfreude and affirmation. We knew it was coming, but it still feels good to be proven right.

Of course Trump wouldn't hesitate to attack John McCain's war-hero status. Trump's bottomless insecurity cannot countenance the idea that his critics have any legitimacy. Of course Trump won't apologize — because his dog-and-pony show is predicated on the idea that he "tells it like it is" and "fights." He's the omniscient master of "The Apprentice." He can't behave like the Biggest Loser.

The Trump squall is not over, alas. But it's nonetheless obvious that we will someday soon look back on this as the beginning of the end of Trumpmania.

The reason his demise is all so predictable is that personality eventually shines through. A few politicians are capable of hiding their truly unpleasant personal qualities, but it takes enormous effort, and sooner or later the mask slips. In general, what you see is what you get in politics, which is why the most successful politicians have personalities suited for the profession: They are basically likable; they can and want to connect with voters; they can act natural because they are natural politicians.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, isn't even a politician. He's a low-rent carnival barker who made it big on the high-rent circuit...

Heh.

The clown who made a buck selling a book called "Liberal Fascism" to halfwits is calling Donald Trump a low-rent carnival barker.

Heh.