Now, I wasn’t reading Newsweek, don’t worry about that, but I found this article by Jonathan Alter courtesy of Best of the Web Today. What struck me most was not the same thing that got Mr. Taranto’s attention. See if you can guess what it was:
The big reason Nixon didn't have to resign: the rise of Conservative Media, which features Fox, talk radio and a bunch of noisy partisans on the Internet and best-sellers list who almost never admit their side does anything wrong. (Liberals, bycontrast, are always eating their own.) This solidarity came in handy when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post began snooping around after the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Once they scored a few scoops with the help of anonymous sources, Sean Hannity et al. went on a rampage. When the young reporters printed an article about grand jury testimony that turned out to be wrong, Drudge and the bloggers had a field day, even though none of them had lifted a finger to try to advance the story. After that, the Silent Majority wouldn't shut up.
What struck me was this phrase, “Liberals, by contrast, are always eating their own.” I’ve heard this from a few people, usually the ones that, natch, talk about the media being conservative-biased. I am trying to come up with some examples of Liberal’s eating their own. All of the ones I could think that could have been considered “eaten” found themselves in that position after losing an election (Dukakis, Gore, Mondale, etc.). You could even say that Gary Hart was a victim of an electoral eating of their own since his eating was during the primary. Maybe a case can be made for Jim Wright since he was voted out when they controlled Congress. Of all the people who deserved a good eating, it is Howard Dean. It may be happening now, in fact. But I would hesitate to call it an eating of one’s own since he is doing palpable, long-term harm to the organization he is meant to lead and is looking to be very ineffective. I would say that the definition of "eating one's own" is doing in your friends at the behest of someone else.
It is simply ridiculous to say that the Republicans do not eat their own. Of the top of my head I can list a bunch: Bob Packwood, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingstone, Jack Ryan in Illinois (done in by Party bosses). Some of these were big names, some not. None of them posed a giant risk to the Party as a whole (except, perhaps, Newt, but I would guess things would not have been much different had he stayed. In fact, things might have been better since the Republicans would have been more, well, Republican than they are now). The fact that Republicans haven’t torn down Tom Delay does not mean they don’t eat their own. After all, liberals would have to tear down all their members who had similar problems…not that I’m holding my breath for that to happen.
