The Expected LATimes Salvo

Keeping "Gropinator Journalism" alive for another season, the LA Times has predictably led off its State-of-the-Union-day coverage with a story that exists for no other purpose than to flail away with limp little Liberal punches at the President's speech.

"Dominance on GOP Agenda," the headline shrills, followed by the subhead that, in LAT-think, is Bush's justification for his domestic agenda: "Depriving Democrats of voters and money is among White House policies' other aims."

Hmm. Well, I thought that was what politics is all about. Wasn't Kerry just trying to dry up GOP funding sources by his proposal to increase taxes on wealthy people and corporations?

The LAT's thesis is that Bush's motivation for tort reform is to deprive trial lawyers of income so their contributions to the DNC and state Democratic parties drop. If ever there was a paper driven by a pro-lawyer editorial line, it is the LAT, so its editorial board does not want to accept the fact that all over the country, people are disgusted with frivolous lawsuits and incomprehensible jury awards. In fact, they can't even bring themselves to write the word frivolous without demeaning it with quotes:

One of the clearest examples is an effort to limit jury awards in lawsuits against doctors and businesses. The caps might not only discourage "frivolous" lawsuits, as Bush argues, but also deprive trial lawyers of income from damage awards that they could then give to Democrats.

The President will also talk about Social Security reform tonight. It's a kinda important subject since the system's in so much trouble. But the LAT sees through all that:

Bush's plan to alter Social Security, for example, would allow younger workers to divert some of their payroll taxes into privately owned retirement accounts. GOP strategists hope it would also foster a new "investor class" that would vote Republican.

"Investor class?!" In the LAT's "class warfare" perspective, it's wrong to underwrite capitalism and seek a better future by purchasing stock. The LAT prefers the "beholden class" of serfs totally dependent on the whims and mismangement of Washington.

Nominating strict constitutionalists? Easy to explain!

In nominating conservative judges to the Supreme Court and lower courts, Mehlman said, the ensuing debate offers a chance to "deepen the GOP by registering to vote men and women who attend church every week."

Warring Messages

The LAT acknowledges that the DNC is struggling to find a voice. Here's a Clintonista at work trying to find something, anything, to say:

"If the Republicans can destroy Social Security, if they can privatize it out of existence, then they remove a key foundation stone for a philosophy of governance which says we're all in it together," said Robert B. Reich, former Labor secretary in the Clinton administration and now a professor at Brandeis University near Boston.

Reich conveniently forgets that nearly all Americans are convinced Social Security is broken, and those under 50 or so believe it will fail them -- and that renders his quote meaningless, another failed DNC message. And he's speaking to a very malcontent few, if he's really trying to sell the idea that the GOP is against us all being in it together. Contrast Reich with Newt:

"FDR achieved for the Democrats two generations of support, in part because people thought he had done something that was real and permanent and improved their lives," said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker who also is close to White House strategists. "Handling Social Security correctly, so that we win the argument over personal savings accounts, I think puts the liberal Democrats in a permanent minority status for a long time."

The conclusion is pretty obvious. Only the few, stubborn, died-in-the-wool Democrats the LAT caters to will give the papers latest gropinator story any credence at all. They're preaching to a shrinking choir.