This November, half a month away, will be in an odd year. Some prefer not to see the hustings come to disuse. Radio personality Rush Limbaugh, telephoned by a declared Army serviceman, offered a two-word phrase for the caller's reference to "these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media," adverse to war efforts. Limbaugh was speaking of mountebanks, one in particular mentioned on his program a few days before — even so, to listen regularly to the broadcaster, one cannot find evidence of animus against military dissent.
Tinker to Evers to Chance, the left reacted. An interest group plucked, from the above exchange, a charge — contempt for the free-thinking soldier! — and flipped it over to newspapers and networks, which passed to Congress the political grounds for reprimanding Limbaugh. Henry Waxman, from the House overwatch, announced a probation of talk radio, while a Democratic plurality in the Senate published a castigation of Limbaugh. Exceptions were fixed in the right places: Waxman hasn't the jurisdiction, nor the Senate the influence. Rush Limbaugh, hale after twenty years and of the stock of a comic entertainer, is at last glance amused. And neither censure correctly cited the original transcript; though, of course, mass processing of red meat precludes refinement.
But the commotion made a lot of noise, and Republicans on a first-name basis with the press covering presidential campaigns were expected to opine. Wrote Fred Thompson: "Congressional Democrats are trying to divert attention from insulting our military leader in Iraq and pandering to the loony left by attacking Rush Limbaugh." Vis-a-vis Mitt Romney: "There may be disagreements with individual opinions, but no one would ever dispute the fact that those members of the military who disagree with the war have earned the right to express that opinion." Two operations, the first reliant on the base, unequivocal; the second independent of it, tentative and in error.
Thompson, already endearing, further endears himself rightward. The former governor of Massachusetts, however, often displays self-disclosure through contraposition, What is Romney for? One must assemble it from what Romney isn't. His position statements notably begin with "I'm not." That is, "I'm not trying to take us back to Reagan-Bush," "I'm not a big-game hunter," "I'm not running for pastor-in-chief," or "I'm not a carbon-copy of Bush." Mitt Romney's convictions occupy negative space, caution having led to indefinition, and the candidate took a wrong swing in what should be considered the hour of playtime in national politics