Where Have All The Tone Cops Gone?

Long time passing.

Where have all the Tone Cops gone?

Long time ago.

Where have all the Tone Cops gone?

Shut their pie holes every one.

When will we ever learn?

When will we ever learn?

Those of you with long and functional memories may recall that five minutes ago it was the considered opinion of the entire Beltway media punditocracy that the tone that Liberals took when engaging in critical dialogue -- especially the tone of the Liberal resistance to Donald Trump -- was the real problem with our politics. Back when failed professional Both Siderist concern trolls like Michael Smerconish were deeply vexed by me and mine because... 

The Left being so angry (just like the Tea Party was in 2010?) is going to drown out their message!

 

As the inimitable Blue Gal pointed out when she wrote this up:

Perhaps Michael has forgotten the entire Bush Administration? When all our "vituperative foul-mouthed blogging" somehow "got in the way" of our message that Bush-Cheney lied us into war and collapsed the economy?

This was a time not long ago and yet apparently lost to living memory when even the editor of our local Republican rag -- a rag which proudly syndicated Ann Coulter's neo-fascist trash every week and which used all of its meager promotional firepower last year to pimp an Awesome! Outdoor! Sporting! Event! featuring  "America’s No. 1 Outdoors Role Model" and raving, blood-drunk racist, Ted Nugent -- was moved to personally pen a shitty, whiny editorial scolding Both Sides for their lack of civility and everyone else in Christendom for permitting it.  

In short, Tone Policing the Left has been the most reliable and ubiquitous weapon in the arsenal of the Lords and Ladies of the Beltway media for as long as I can remember.  It has also been the the best and most recession-proof dollar in the political media game, allowing dozens of otherwise talentless ciphers to enjoy flourishing careers as pundits and op-ed writers and cable teevee microcelebrities.

Which brings us to this terrific, dog-that-didn't-bark-in-the-night question sent along by Alert Reader and friend of the blog, Kevin H.

Do you recall if the Lincoln Project, being comprised of conservatives, has had the Tone Police called on it...like liberals would get if we said literally the exact same thing?

Well, let's think about that for a minute.

When it comes right down to it, the Lincoln Project's ads are nothing more than decades-worth of Liberal critiques of Conservatism with the serial numbers filed off and jazzed up with zoomy graphics, professional video editing and ominous music.  And when you see Lincoln Project members like Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, Charlie Sykes or Michael Steele making one of their hundreds of appearances on cable teevee, on premium podcasts or in the op-ed pages of America's newspapers, the way they talk -- the very words they use to go after Republicans, often right down to their vocabulary and cadence --

-- is virtually indistinguishable from salty language for which the Beltway Media Tone Police have been publicly flogging the shit out of us dirty, disreputable Liberal bloggers for decades.

In fact, the only substantive difference is that, in the entire history of the world, no "vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers on the left" [David Broder, 2006] have ever been gifted the millions of dollars in free air time and glowing free book-and-podcast pimping that the media has been handing out to Never Trumpers like Mardi Gras beads.  

So, since the media as embiggened the vituperative, foul-mouthed messaging of the Lincoln Project 10,000 times larger than any dirty, disreputable Liberal blogger could ever have dream of, it would be fair to assume that the Tone Police would be landing on them with both feet 10,000 times harder than they ever stomped on any Liberal, right?

So let's use our Google and out Twitter search to find out what kind of strip-the-bark-off-'em hiding the Beltway's most infamous Tone Police have been meting out to the Lincoln Lads.

From the aforementioned Michael Smerconish?  

Uh...nothing.  Not a peep.

Well what about Conservatism's favorite moral scold, David Brooks?  

Nothing.  But he thinks something called the "Jefferson Project" is full of wonderful Bush and McCain people who are true conservatives, unlike Trump.

Tom Friedman?  

Nada.

Ross Douthat?  

Well Cardinal Douthat did once write one thing critical of one member of the Lincoln Project, Stuart Stevens.  But it had nothing to with the language or tactics of their ad campaign.  Instead it was because Stevens' take on the GOP -- roughly, that they're a mob of bigots, imbeciles and grifters who who never believed the bullshit they have been preaching for decades --  hit Douthat right where he lived.  Here is Douthat, excerpted in the Washington Monthly:

"Stevens does not really offer a story of intellectual conversion or gradual ideological disillusionment. He doesn’t tell us that he used to believe in supply-side economics but now rejects it, or that he used to be against abortion or same-sex marriage but came to a different view, or that he used to favor welfare reform and tough sentencing laws and now repents…

"…But mostly Stevens presses a critique of Republican voters, activists and operatives — and white religious conservatives above all — that makes its author seem less like a convert with a tale to tell and more like the world’s most clueless mercenary, a political veteran who noticed only after several decades that he was fighting for what was, by his own account, transparently the wicked side."

What about Bret Stephens?  He seems to have a lot of time on his hands and a willingness to chase down a story no matter how utterly trivial it is.

Nope.  Nothing from BretBug.

From reliable Beltway stalactite, Michael Gerson?

Nothing.

Joe Scarborough?

Ha!  "Morning Joe" is practically a daily Lincoln Project fundraiser.

Kathleen Parker?  

Nothing.

Jennifer Rubin?  

Are you fucking kidding me?  She's baking them cookies.

Peggy Noonan?  

The only time Peggers has pulled her nose out of the brandy snifter to opine about the Lincoln Lads was that one, bizarre rant --

Burn the Republican Party Down? 

It would damage the country, and those who say yes bear some blame for the president’s rise.

-- scolding them for supporting the GOP instead of getting hip to the fact that Donald Trump and his supporters were nihilists sooner.

And what about Matthew Dowd and/or Ron Fournier?  The Both Siderist Bobbsey Twins of the 2016 election?  

From Fournier, not a mumbling word.  

From Dowd, well, see for yourself:

This made me laugh out loud. https://t.co/YxYzVQ0MJO

— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) October 7, 2020

Three of these Americans are good friends of mine. And they all love our country and are true patriots.

— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) December 17, 2019

So in answer to your question Kevin...

Before the Never Trumpers began ripping off decades of Liberal critique of the Right and building a very profitable business re-marketing themselves as noble Truth Tellers, the Beltway media believed its most sacred duty was to immediately smother any Liberal voice critical of the GOP wherever it might crop up.  To Tone Police it to death and bury it under a pile of Both Siderism.

After the Never Trumpers ripped off decades of Liberal critique of the Right and built a very profitable business re-marketing themselves as noble Truth Tellers, the Beltway media almost immediately welcomed them with open arms and open wallets, and the Tone Police suddenly fell silent or morphed into Lincoln Project cheerleaders.

And we inconvenient Liberals?  Well, we ceased to exist at all.

No Half Measures