Any establishment is comprised of a few genuine navigators, and a much larger contingent of people whom the true leaders humor with the illusion that they too are movers and shakers, when in fact they are mere ballast. This larger group consists not only of the people whose names actually appear in the leaders' rolodexes, but also of a "spiritual establishment," if you will—those who wish to persuade the general public that they are players, in the hopes (a) that they can thereby distinguish themselves from the ignorant flock, and (b) that the real members of the establishment might finally invite them to this year's initiation ceremony.
In the case of the Republican Party Establishment, the "spiritual" members can be found in large numbers in the print media and on the internet. These are the commentators who carefully observe the daily developments of the political scene, desperately trying to spy out a new trend, some recent "momentum," or what have you. Their purpose: to jump in and make a grand pronouncement about that perceived trend before others have picked up on it, thus making themselves look wise and prescient. In reality, however, their feverish trend-spotting is worse than a vain effort. Their grand pronouncements, far from isolating any truth, serve only to propagate the shepherding illusions of the real leaders of the Establishment. And then, if and when reality bites them on the backside, they are forced to turn around and begin their ambitious efforts all over again, immediately contradicting their own previous "discoveries" in search of some trendy new pronouncement with which to distinguish themselves. In other words, their attempts to look like shepherds only highlight the extent to which they are sheep.
At the moment, of course, these ambitious Establishment sheep are all focused on the Republican primaries. There is no need to name them. They know who they are. What is more, you all know them, too, you know where their writing appears, you know what they have said up to now—and you probably know what they will say next.
They are the men who tripped over each other to declare, immediately after Iowa and New Hampshire, that Romney was inevitable and unstoppable.
They are the ones who, immediately after Santorum was declared the real winner of Iowa, and Gingrich soared in South Carolina, tripped over each other to announce that Romney was floundering and rudderless, and that Florida was his last chance to salvage any hope he might have of stopping the inevitable Newt juggernaut.
They are the ones who, in the minutes after Florida, pronounced the race over, and told conservatives that it was time to give up the false hopes, and rally around the inevitable nominee, Romney.
Suddenly, however—or at least it must seem awfully sudden to them—Santorum has made a huge stand in the Midwest. You can rest assured, therefore, that over the next few days those conservative websites with a weakness for moony-eyed Establishment-mongering will be filled with ingenious analyses—by the same people yet again—explaining how the conservative base just hasn't taken a shine to Romney, and that this race is inevitably going to be a fight to the bitter end. (I'm guessing a few, seeing where the Establishment's bread is buttered, will try to stick to the "Romney is inevitable" storyline for a few days, until they either discourage enough conservatives to fulfill their own prophecy, or are forced by the next set of results to move on to their next absolute certainty.)
Watching this dance over the past few months, I have been reminded of the two best stories I know about misguided sheep, and how their stratagems "inevitably" run up against the facts of life. The first story comes from an early Monty Python skit. A gentleman happens upon a farmer staring out over a field.
Gentleman: Those are sheep, aren't they?
Farmer: Right.
Gentleman: Yes, I thought so—only, why are they up in the trees?
As the skit continues, we learn that Harold, "that most dangerous of animals, a clever sheep," has tried to convince his companions that they are birds. Unfortunately, as the farmer explains, for all their efforts to take flight, these sheep "do not so much fly, as plummet."
The other story I know about ambitious sheep comes from Thomas Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd." Tragedy befalls the novel's protagonist early on, as his ill-trained sheep dog runs to a cliff's edge, thereby leading the man's entire flock off the cliff, and ruining him.
Both of these tales, one comic, the other tragic, say more about the nature and fate of a good portion of today's so-called conservative media than I could perhaps hope to capture in a million dry, literal words. Instead, I would like to make a modest suggestion to those who are tired of sifting through opinions of this variety in search of some serious information or thought. Commentators who are obsessed with telling you what is "inevitably" going to happen next, and what you must therefore accept as "inevitable," are generally of the same cloth as pollsters. They do not really have any idea what is going to happen next, because in their search for conclusive predictability, they have forgotten that the "trends" they are spotting are nothing more or less than the collective decisions of thousands of individual human beings, each of them possessing his or her own mind, morality, sentiments, and priorities—and most of them willing to analyze, rethink, and reassess their own previous opinions and presuppositions, on a moment's notice if necessary.
Their folly is everyone else's good fortune. If these ambitious sheep among the pollsters and the commentariat were correct in their presumption of real predictive power, the world would be in even more dire straits than it actually is. Leave these men to their anxious waiting in the Establishment's antechamber. There, by the grace of God, the rest of us are not obliged to go.
A final note: The author is well aware of the temptations that lead not only the foolish, but also many good and reasonable men, into the sad lot of ambitious sheep. For the true-hearted among this faction, then, this article is intended as a plea to return to the pure, serious motives that led you to political commentary in the first place. Fortunately, the author is extremely well-insulated from such temptations, being as far away from the smell of the Establishment's fine leather as a human can be: Educated at a school with a nice international ranking, but far from anyone's top ten list; teaching without tenure at a mid-sized Korean university; never having held a title such as "Under-Secretary," "Assistant Deputy," or "Speechwriter"; never having been a staffer, clerk, or shoeshine boy to anyone famous; and writing primarily for Canada Free Press, a safe haven for the free-thinking impulses that just might save the free world, I am miles off the Establishment radar. And a wonderful vantage point it is: I have only my own conscience to answer to, and need pander only to my wife's good opinion. Another lesson to be learned from "Far From the Madding Crowd."
