Comedy Gold, Pundit Edition

There is no more reliable indicator of the flaccid conventional wisdom of Beltway liberals than the Washington Post columns of E. J. Dionne. Dionne has lately been quite exercised about the horribleness of those nasty partisan mobs who have been shouting down gallant Congresscritters in town hall meetings and such.

Just a month ago, he was shouting from the housetops about the problem of GOP extremists who are hijacking the process, expressing faux worries that those nasty Republicans were marginalizing themselves again:

The harshness of the rhetorical salvos is feeding worries among some Republicans that the GOP is increasingly perceived as a right-wing, Southern regional party.

Former Reagan hand and current Obama supporter Bruce Bartlett is quite concerned about this, of course, as is outgoing Ohio Senator George Voinovich, last seen crying about John Bolton because he was afraid of Bolton's mustache or somesuch. But Dionne wasn't really concerned about it, of course, because on August 3, Dionne was pretty convinced he and his pals still had control of the narrative.

Two weeks later, after a number of rowdy town halls and a few interesting anecdotes passed over the transom, Dionne was quite interested in making sure that his ever-credulous readers understood the lumpen Republican threat:

This is not about the politics of populism. It's about the politics of the jackboot. It's not about an opposition that has every right to free expression. It's about an angry minority engaging in intimidation backed by the threat of violence.

That scary angry minority with their jackboots! Gotta stop that! Dionne was completely down with the notion of playing up those gun-toting gland cases who were probably Nazis or racists or both.

Yes, I have raised the racial issue, and it is profoundly troubling that firearms should begin to appear with some frequency at a president's public events only now, when the president is black. Race is not the only thing at stake here, and I have no knowledge of the personal motivations of those carrying the weapons.

Of course, a more circumspect pundit might refrain from raising the race issue, especially if he stipulates that he had no knowledge of the personal motivations of those carrying the weapons. That might have been a wiser course of action, especially since at least one of the people in question was, in fact, black. But never mind that.

Today, Dionne is back with the real story:

Health-care reform is said to be in trouble partly because of those raucous August town-hall meetings in which Democratic members of Congress were besieged by shouters opposed to change.

It's easy to see why people might think that. Perhaps they got that impression from reading an E. J. Dionne column. But wait -- there's more!

But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? What if the highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion? What if most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt?

Gee, ya think? But Dionne is just getting warmed up:

There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television's point of view "boring") encounters between elected representatives and their constituents.

That must be it. The comfortable pundit bloviating about race and the "politics of the jackboot" had nothing to do with it.

Look, E. J. Dionne can believe whatever he wants and if he wants to consult his inner Magic 8-Ball to write his next column, that's fine. It would appear that the Washington Post is going to pay him no matter how many times he contradicts himself. I would simply suggest this -- any of the following individuals likely has more credibility on this issue than E. J. Dionne:

Celine Dion

Dion and the Belmonts

Dionne Warwick

Former NHL great Marcel Dionne

The Dionne Quintuplets, including the 3 who are deceased.