Stuart Rothenberg is a hard-right-wing political pundit - that isn't a secret, even though the Washington, D.C. media portrays him as an objective "analyst." I've made my views on Mr. Conventional Wisdom pretty clear. The thing that keeps a person like him up at night, quivering in a pool of his own cold sweat is the realization that he is no longer relevant - and the realization that everyone else knows he's not relevant and that everyone is instead laughing at him behind his back.
So I'm going to be a nice guy - I'm going to laugh at Little Stuey to his face right here, in response to his new diatribe.
It's a typical Rothenberg piece where he packages what he just read on The Hotline as some sort of incredible expertise that no mortal could possibly come up with themselves. It's sort of like someone impersonating a doctor pointing at your big toe and saying "that's your big toe" and then expecting you to think he's some sort of medical genius.
As his article comes to a close, we are treated to a finale of third-hand chatter that he likely heard over martinis at the Capital Grille. Little Stuey righteously declares that a win by Ned Lamont in the Connecticut primary "would only embolden the crazies in the party" - a clear attempt to caricature and slander the netroots and the masses of ordinary people who are re-engaging in politics as never before. This exact type of slander, not surprisingly, is being echoed word-for-word by the Lieberman campaign.
This is typical. What's crazy to creatures of Washington, D.C. like Little Stuey is not Lieberman's efforts to sell out working people, or his pathological lying about the Iraq War and Social Security. To them, that's called "principle." Similarly, what's crazy to Washington insiders is not the right-wing lunatics who go to the floor of the House and blame the Almighty for global warming and say they are legislating in God's name - to devout power-worshipers like little Stuey those are called important "political activists." The real "crazies," Little Stuey leads us to believe, are the people who have the nerve to use the Internet as a political tool.
What's hilarous, of course, is that little Stuey is posting his article on a blog to attack blogs and the netroots as "crazies." But, then, that gives away little Stuey's bias. What's crazy to him is not blogs or the netroots - after all, he's more than happy to use blogs to promote his warmed over defecations to the netroots that he claims are "crazy." No, what's really crazy to people like Stu Rothenberg and ultimately Joe Lieberman is the idea that people like Stu Rothenberg and Joe Lieberman no longer hold the monopoly on political relevance. What's crazy to them, in short, is the idea that ordinary people are deciding that America's democracy is not the exclusive property of Washington insiders.
Look, I feel bad for little Stuey in a lot of ways. It's gotta be hard for him. Politics has long been the arena where angry, bitter, insecure people like Stu Rothenberg get to be big stars regardless of their lack of talent. It has been a magnet for people who were picked last for kickball in kindergarten, shoved into the gym locker in middle school, and laughed at by girls in high school - and who are still angry about it, and take out their anger by slandering ordinary people who they feel threatened by. That's been the case because politics has long been the place where all you have to do to become a star is kiss the power structure's ass and hang around forever no matter how many elections you lose, facts you blow, or predictions you get wrong.
But that's now ending. People - ordinary people - are actually asserting themselves in the political arena. That means the era of No Talent Ass Clown Stu Rothenberg As Big Star is over and the era of Stu Rothenberg As The Equivalent of A Past-The-Prime Child Actor is beginning. And, not surprisingly, little Stuey doesn't like that and he's crying.
And don't kid yourself - when Stu sits up at night wetting his bed, shaking from cold and fear, he knows this is happening. That's why he gets up in the morning, heads straight to the blogs that he says are so "crazy" and angrily blogs that if ordinary people, blogs and the netroots win a Senate election they are "crazy."
Little Stuey, if you are looking for crazy - here's an idea: stop having a public temper tantrum. Instead, just grab yourself, Joe Lieberman and the staff of the DLC and stand in front of a mirror for a while and take a good look. Crazy will be staring you in the face, while history quietly passes you by in the background.