Entry 17:

Dear Wlad,

I write this as the AP flashes the news that Ashcroft was confirmed. Seems to me the press again misses the story here. There's so much about the alleged stranglehold on the GOP of the right but almost nothing about what's really going on here: a power struggle between the Democratic pols and the left-wing grievance brigade, who want veto power over the former's votes. Our lead editorial today gets at that. (It's not mine, so I think it's kosher to plug it.)

In short, the Republican Party is chugging along pretty well. It's the Democrats who've been imploding. Look at the GOP gains in Congress, in state legislatures and governorships, even in mayoral races in big cities like New York and L.A. The only real debates today are on the right. Even abortion. I look at my colleagues. All of us are joined by a few principles strongly shared. But on social issues like abortion, we range from people like me, who are pro-life, to those who want it legal but are not opposed to some restrictions to our more libertarian friends who favor no restrictions (except for the usual libertarian one against tax subsidies). It's all pretty civil here.

Compare that to the dogma of the Democratic Party platform. You know, there was a day when even Al Gore and Bill Clinton were either considered pro-life or favored some restrictions. Of course, those were the days when Jesse Jackson was still referring to it as "genocide" for black America. But in the Democratic Party today, every knee must bend to the new dogma. Look what they did to Joe Lieberman, what they're now doing to Robert Torricelli, who flip-flopped on Ashcroft (see back-page Journal news story today).

But onto more important things--yes, I did ask my mother about the Giants stealing the Dodgers' signals in the 1951 playoffs. (You know that the trivia question is always "Who was on deck?" Answer: Willie Mays) Clearly it opened an old wound. My mother says Charlie Dressen overmanaged the Dodgers, the press favored the Giants because they were more glam (Leo Durocher's wife being Hollywood's Lorraine Day--Dr. Kildare's nurse), that a half-century later she still can't bring herself to like the New York Post (despite its sharing her politics) because of its pro-Giant sympathies. Remember, all this is well before I was born.

Listening to her, I thought of some Gore supporter 50 years hence, still railing about Florida. Let it go.

Cheers,
Bill

P.S.: Remember all the hoopla over the statue of Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson that was supposed to commemorate Reese's putting his arm around Robinson at Cincinnati's Crosley Field in 1947 in response to the race baiting from the crowd? Giuliani said it would be a joint government-private initiative and the statue would go somewhere in Brooklyn. But Jack Newfield, credited with the idea, reported this week in the Post that after all the headlines, nothing's happened.