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| Elci |
The trouble with bad
manners, Bill Buckley once said, is that they sometimes lead to murder.
Buckley was perhaps the most well-mannered contrarian journalist
in the business, and he had a genius for friendship.
Considering the disposition of political forces in
Connecticut – Democrats own the state, lock, stock and barrel -- most
contrarian journalists would necessarily fall on the Republican side of the
political barricades. They would also be conservative or libertarian. Buckley s last significant collection of his
writings -- Happy Days Were Here Again
-- was subtitled, provocatively, “Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist.”
Those who knew him well will testify that Buckley could handle disagreement
without flyting off the handle.
Buckley’s irrepressible good humor always stood him in good
stead. Asked by a New York Times reporter during his run for mayor of New York
City against John Lindsey what he would do if – miracle of miracles – he
actually won the race, Buckley
responded he would hang a net outside the window of the New York Times’
editorial floor, to catch the bodies as they fell.
The front page, top of the fold Hartford Courant headline reads
“GOP leader calls for apology after video.”
The video featured Lee Elci, 22 year radio talk show host, “a conservative who
is running as a Republican” against Democrat state Senator Martha Marx of New London,
and a gaggle of pearl clutching Democratic poohbahs such as state Attorney
General William Tong, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, and
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
“Elci,” the Courant tells us, “was temporarily taken off his
radio show until after the Nov. 3 election after Marx raised complaints that he
would have an unfair advantage of promoting his own campaign without equal time
for her. The latest dust-up came at a
Democratic event with top state officials, and video of the event is now
playing on Elci’s Facebook page as a 30-second advertisement. The video shows
Marx pointing to the camera and saying, ‘I have an A--hole running against me,
and I hope that gets on Facebook’”
Governor Ned Lamont joined in the merriment, according to the
Courant report: “’Martha will tell you that her opponent is an absolute idiot
---hole.’ Lamont’s fellow Democrats are seen laughing and smiling in the video.
Marx then says, ‘He can take his big mouth that I have silenced and go back on
the radio.’ Republican Party Chairman Ben Proto seemed more surprised than
abashed. He told the Courant, “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the governor
call anyone an A--hole.” Proto added he thought Lamont owed Elci an apology.
No apology was forthcoming from Lamont’s flack catcher
Lauren Gray, a spokeswoman for the Lamont campaign, who said that the governor
was attempting to make a joke in comments that were taken out of context.
Elci put it all down to the expected Sturm und Drang of political campaigns: “My feelings aren’t hurt,”
Elci told The Courant in an interview. “I’m a big boy with a thick skin,”
hardened after more than two decades of political buffering.
Proto, while avoiding vulgarity, was less placid in his
response: “’I’d say she’s as dumb as a stone, but that would be insulting to
stones,’ Proto told The Courant. ‘Everybody in that room knows that Martha Marx
is not the brightest bulb on the tree, so they’re trying to figure out how to
protect her because they’d rather have a stupid Democrat than a smart
Republican in the Senate. And they have one in Martha.’”
Good to get these things out of your system; such flushing
helps drive off insomnia.
The differences between the right and left in America are
serious. That has been the case for decades, even before Buckley raised aloft
the flag of American conservatism. Elci, always opening himself to critics on
the left, has passed the Buckley test for 22 years in broadcast journalism; Marx
has fallen short. And the Democrat Party
titterers mentioned above, often the targets of Elci who even under awkward
circumstances has managed to maintain his manners, need never fear that they
will incur the wrath of free speech for me but not for thee left of center
bootlickers in New England’s media. They are fast making Barry Goldwater a prophet
unloved in his own country. If you cut out New England and California,
Goldwater once said, you’ve got a pretty darn good country. Goldwater didn’t
say “darn.” He brashly used the more vulgar D-word, demonstrating to all that
there is a place in competitive politics for jocular vulgarity.
The chief problem with Democrats in Connecticut is not that
they are vulgar. Both Blumenthal and Lamont are millionaires with millionaire
manners who live in toney Greenwich Connecticut, the headquarters of
millionaire self-sufficiency. Lamont in particular has spent millions financing
his own campaigns, which relieves him of the necessity of grubbing for dollars
among the plebs. The Democrat Party in Connecticut is now a hegemonic force
that rivals the monarchy of the Sun King. If the No Kings folk were serious in
their assaults on monarchs, they would be picketing under Lamont’s windows.
Elci says these kinds of things aloud, always minding his manners. That’s why Marx called him an A-hole, to gain
favor among Connecticut’s modern updated kings.
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