Attacking the aggressive Ted Cruz when Liz Warren simultaneously hits the Senate in full aggression mode.

Big Media is hot to wreck Ted Cruz. Here's the NYT piece: "Texas Senator Goes on Attack and Raises Bipartisan Hackles." Oh? Bipartisan has hackles? Well, then I guess those bipartisan hackles are also raised by Elizabeth Warren. Here's HuffPo: "Elizabeth Warren's Aggressive Questioning Prompts Anger From Wall Street."

The NYT forefronts this quote from Barbara Boxer:

“It was really reminiscent of a different time and place, when you said, ‘I have here in my pocket a speech you made on such and such a date,’ and, of course, nothing was in the pocket,” she said, a reference to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s pursuit of Communists in the 1950s. “It was reminiscent of some bad times.”

Boxer didn't name names, but the NYT wants us to know that referred to Cruz, but why not Warren too? Because the NYT wouldn't have structured its rhetoric that way if it had known that a new Senator from the Democratic Party was going to go into attack dog mode the day they published the piece?

In just two months, Mr. Cruz, 42, has made his presence felt in an institution where new arrivals are usually not heard from for months, if not years....

In a body known for comity, Mr. Cruz is taking confrontational... sensibilities to new heights...

Ha ha ha. Cruz, that clod, doesn't know the comity tradition. Meanwhile, here comes the brilliant Harvard lawprof, and she's not meekly conforming to the be-seen-and-not-heard routine. So how are those hackles doing now — those bipartisan hackles — raised... or lying flat and flobby?



Hackles? More like hacks.

"The Wisconsin delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa were treated like royalty."

"They were given a prime location on the convention floor, right up front and to the right of the stage. The delegates from Wisconsin aren't nearly as well positioned when the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte officially opens Tuesday."

What's happened to Wisconsin? Here's the L.A. Times trying to figure it out:

Four years ago, it might have sounded preposterous that Wisconsin, a state that preferred Barack Obama to John McCain by 14 points, would become a wellspring of successful GOP candidates and leaders.

But the impossible has happened. The state features three prominent speakers during the GOP convention -- RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, Gov. Scott Walker and vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan, who hopes to wow the nation with a speech Wednesday night. In 2008, the state’s two U.S. senators were from the Democratic Party. Polls indicate that after Nov. 6, both will be Republican.

Red isn’t necessarily a strange color for Wisconsin – after all, the Republican Party was founded as an anti-slavery party in the state in 1854. But what may be surprising is the strong conservative bent of the politicians who have come out of a state that has not chosen a Republican for the White House since 1984.

The Republican Party was founded as an anti-slavery party in Wisconsin. Interesting to see that highlighted, especially with the L.A. Times failing even to mention Joe McCarthy.

Why isn't the Democratic convention treating the Wisconsin delegates better? When I look at the Electoral College maps, I can easily see how our 10 electoral votes could make the difference for Obama in this tight race. Perhaps the Dems think they're doing enough by giving Tammy Baldwin a prime-time speaking spot. (Tammy is the congresswoman from Madison's district who is all but doomed to lose to Tommy Thompson in the Senate race in November.)

"We've seen Paul Ryan and Scott Walker on the national stage. I'm going to talk about the Wisconsin I know," Baldwin said in an interview, emphasizing fairness and hard work over influence and wealth.

The Wisconsin I know... i.e., Madison. Do tell!

"Scott Walker is not Joe McCarthy. Their political convictions and the two moments in history are quite different."

Writes UW history prof William Cronon in a NYT op-ed:

But there is something about the style of the two men — their aggressiveness, their self-certainty, their seeming indifference to contrary views — that may help explain the extreme partisan reactions they triggered. McCarthy helped create the modern Democratic Party in Wisconsin by infuriating progressive Republicans, imagining that he could build a national platform by cultivating an image as a sternly uncompromising leader willing to attack anyone who stood in his way. Mr. Walker appears to be provoking some of the same ire from adversaries and from advocates of good government by acting with a similar contempt for those who disagree with him.

The turmoil in Wisconsin is not only about bargaining rights or the pension payments of public employees. It is about transparency and openness. It is about neighborliness, decency and mutual respect. Joe McCarthy forgot these lessons of good government, and so, I fear, has Mr. Walker. Wisconsin’s citizens have not.

A couple preliminary observations:

1. The protesters and the Democrats in the Wisconsin legislature are making a much bigger show of lacking "neighborliness, decency and mutual respect" than the Republicans, who won the election last fall and are attempting to solve a terrible economic problem. Legislators ran to another state and hid out to obstruct the majority, and the protesters have been chanting unneighborly chants and carrying outrageous signs — depicting Scott Walker as Hitler, etc. — for a month. They took over the Capitol, covering its marble walls with nasty signs, defiling its war monument, and breaking things. They mobbed a state senator. They made death threats! Not all of them. But how can you talk about neighborliness, decency and mutual respect and not acknowledge these things?

2. Cronon's the historian, and he points to Joe McCarthy. But couldn't one also point to Ronald Reagan? Yeah, I know: not from Wisconsin. But he was perceived as "a sternly uncompromising leader" when he was Governor of California. All the college kids — including me — thought he was a demon. Cronon says McCarthy "helped create the modern Democratic Party," but Reagan's role in creating the modern Republican Party is even more dramatic. Walker is much more like Reagan. In fact, Reagan's resemblance to McCarthy is greater than Walker's. Reagan got in front of the camera and said some pretty harsh things back in the late 60s. Walker always comes across as a nice person, making tough decisions and doing what he thinks needs to be done.