Some Editors Don’t Get It

The Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board, in its Friday edition, ran a piece strongly decrying the Left’s and their Progressive-Democratic Party’s shrill attacks on Justice Sam Alito for his effrontery in decrying their attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In those personages’ eyes, Alito behaved despicably in two ways: defending those two freedoms, and any others, is far too political a thing for any mere Justice to do. And he did it in front of that dastardly bastion of individual liberty, the Federalist Society.

Then the editors deprecated their otherwise excellent piece with this, near the end of their editorial:

The American judiciary, in its best tradition, balances majoritarian demands with the constitutional rights of weaker and less politically powerful groups, whether they are socialist or conservative.

This is a very large misunderstanding. The American judiciary, in its best tradition—if only rarely honored—doesn’t balance anything. It acts on the text of the Constitution and the statute(s) before it in a case.

Any balancing is a political action legitimately carried out only by the political branches of our American government, the members of which are elected—and replaced—by our nation’s sovereign political aggregation, We the People.

Two Misleadings in One

Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden now is pushing the General Services Administration to approve an official transition of power from President Donald Trump to him.

That’s the first mislead. There’s no power to transition because no winner of this Presidential election has been identified yet.

Reuters then says, in its article at the link,

Biden was declared the winner of the November 3 election by US television networks on Saturday….

That’s the second mislead. Reuters‘ own press oblivious self-importance notwithstanding, it’s remarkably unimportant what the US television network press thinks. The winner of the November will be identified by the aggregated certifications of State vote counts by State Secretaries of State and the associated allocation of Electors in the Electoral College (technically, not until the Electors actually vote in December, but the incidence of faithless Electors is quite rare).

Misdirected

…as opposed to misdirection. Gerald Seib, in his Monday piece for The Wall Street Journal, wrote about the need to restore confidence in America’s democracy.

His need is misplaced, however. We Americans have a deep and abiding confidence in our republican form of democracy right along with our faith in voting (another of Seib’s misplaced concerns) as the means of executing our republican democracy.

this year’s election can be seen as the culmination of a two-decade period of decline in faith in the basic building blocks of democracy. That period began with the controversial Florida recount in the 2000 election, then expanded four years ago to charges of foreign interference in an election.

No, this year’s election has demonstrated our faith in our republican democracy and our voting: 150 million voters—easily a record number in his words—voted. That’s no lack of faith.

On the other hand, this year’s election can be seen as the culmination of a two-decade decline in faith in what is increasingly recognized as an intrinsically mendacious system of media, of news reporting and opinion providing. Our media have increasingly mixed news and opinion, masquerading the latter as the former while the former is increasingly unsupported by identifiable sources. Our media have increasingly provided “opinion” unsupported by fact, identifiable sources, even logic.

Our media culminated its descent (so far culminated, the descent isn’t slowing) with its open spiking of stories detrimental to Progressive-Democrats like Joe Biden or favorable to Republicans like Donald Trump. That culmination includes printing outright lies, for instance about what Trump said about our soldiers, while openly refusing to retract their stories when those lies, for instance about what Trump said about our soldiers, are disproven.

And this:

Now President Trump and his allies head to court with charges of widespread vote fraud, charges so far unsubstantiated, raising doubts about the integrity of voting in states across the map.

Leave aside the fact that no one is going to prosecute a fraud case—or a widespread error case, or a case involving State Executive Branch officials violating State Election laws, even if for the Very Best of reasons—in the press. Such cases will be prosecuted in court, and that includes providing evidence to support the allegations.

No, contrary to Seib’s assertion, what Trump and his allies are doing is seeking to preserve confidence in the integrity of voting by holding to account the personnel responsible for overseeing and protecting the several voting systems. Personnel who, by coincidence, have created doubt through their mishandling of their responsibilities primarily in Progressive-Democrat-controlled jurisdictions.