Fred Barnes, the amusing Weekly Standard's amusing executive editor and one of Fox New's many ideological enforcers, has been reduced to Panglossian comforts. He's searching everywhere for proof that he and his kind do indeed live in the best of all possible worlds, despite volcanic right-wing troubles erupting to the contrary.
In fact, his latest Weekly Standard essay borders, if you'll pardon my mixing of philosophical realms, on the Platonic Ideal of Voltaire's Panglossism. It is but one of Barnes' splendid experiments in the world turned upside down, as he positively transcends the right's extreme discomfort by finding hope where he can. (Hence we see the Weekly Standard's spiritual division of labor: Billy Kristol wins the war in Iraq; Freddie Barnes wins the one at home.)
Things only seem bad is the unspoken and yearning essence of his "An Unusually Effective Minority: Bush and the congressional GOP embarrass the Democrats." The 2006 election was indeed "calamitous," Barnes concedes, but also scarcely defining.
For "the biggest surprise in Washington in 2007 is who's turned out to be the strongest force in town." Regrettably, the article's title spoiled the hidden surprise in Barnes' Crackerjack analysis: "The most powerful group is President Bush and congressional Republicans."
"Full-scale cooperation seemed unlikely. But it's happened," beams Barnes, who then proceeds to flash a peculiar understanding of our government's constitutional structure of separate powers: "True, Bush and the Republicans aren't dominant. They're a minority, but an unusually effective one." I'm unclear who's an extension of whom, but I know Fred knows, so we'll skip that.
But his biggest salvational thrill is, as I said, trumpeted all too soon in the title: The Republicans are really giving Congressional Democrats what for, boy, and really embarrassing the lot of them.
Praise be, says Barnes. The Iraq war rages undiminished despite Democratic protests and parliamentary maneuverings, and the Dems are just as ineffective in their domestic agenda. "Of the 'six for '06' bills touted by House Democrats, only one has become law," he notes. "And that one, which raises the minimum wage, passed not on its own, but only because it was tacked onto the Iraq funding bill. Senate Democrats have fared no better."
From all this, he concludes the "Democrats are stymied, foiled, and frustrated." And he isn't wrong.
Yet only once does Barnes use the explanatory word that Democrats will, in turn, beat his pals with over the head in the 2008 campaign; the one that has led to their being stymied, foiled and frustrated: "Republicans have hindered or obstructed them at almost every turn."
Mr. Barnes and his ideological brothers are presently gleeful about the tactic, but if there's one word that can un-stymie, un-foil and un-frustrate the Dems in 2008, it's the drumbeat of Republican "obstructionism." Other than Iraq, Dems can drench their 2008 message in that singular concept -- over, and over, and over.
He'll live to regret reveling in it now, but don't feel sorry for him. You can't keep Dr. Fred Barnes-Pangloss down. He should have no problem finding a 1964-like silver lining around the 2009 Republican minority -- an exceedingly minor minority, and all because of its preceding, grinning but short-sighted obstructionism.