As a devout political junkie, I view Michael Barone as one of the very best in the business. He is the longtime editor/author/guru behind the incomparable Almanac of American Politics, the only book which has a permanent spot beside my bed. For some time I have believed that Barone is one of the very sharpest minds covering American politics. While Barone is an avowed conservative (and likely a Republican), this has never really bothered me because I have long found his work so insightful.
It is for this reason, that I find the current direction of much of his work so dispiriting. Perhaps he is still bitter over the results of the November elections, but for the last few months, Barone's columns and blog posts have been filled with nasty, snide comments and absurd premises. Seeing his two most recent posts -- comparing President Bush to Harry Truman and calling on President Bush to pardon Scooter Libby -- really makes me sad. Sure, I may not agree with these positions on the political merits, but it goes beyond simple politics: these contentions are plainly wrong, not to mention silly. But worse is that it seems as though Barone is slowly retreating from being a brilliant political observer into being a petty bomb-thrower.
Perhaps I have just not been reading Barone for long enough and he has always been like this more or less, but I don't think that's the case. It's a pretty sad turn of events. You can do better than that, Michael!
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I told you in a previous post that the guy is a whining right wing turd. He must think the fact that his past research was so commendable innoculates him from recent craziness....he's bitter that despite all his hyperventilating center-right America forever-ness, the country kicked his and the GOP's ideology to the curb. Sure the GOP may come back, the pendulum keeps swinging, but it has nothing to do with ideology, just the nature of a mature and dynamic electorate, something the GOP seems to not understand.
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