Transparentness Of Bias, Weirdness Of English

Some Jay Nordlinger excerpts:

If you will allow me to continue a theme from yesterday (Johnny One Note that I am): No one — no liberal commentator, not anyone — is saying that the Pennsylvania gubernatorial election is a test of that state’s racial maturity. No one is saying that Ohio’s gubernatorial election is a test of that state’s racial maturity. No one is saying that the Maryland senatorial election is a test of that state’s racial maturity.

And why? Because the mainstream media have stopped caring about race? Oh, no. Because the black candidates running in those states — Lynn Swann, Kenneth Blackwell, and Michael Steele — are all conservative Republicans. And if they were liberal Democrats: Don’t you think the media would be saying, at a minimum, what wonderful opportunities the people in those states have? I do.

Now, when those candidates lose — if they lose — I will not be ascribing racism, or racial immaturity, to Pennsylvanians, Ohioans, and Marylanders. But if the shoe were on the other foot? If those candidates were Democrats? What would the media say, in the event of their losses?

I will stop beating this horse (for the time being).

And race aside — two of the most beautiful words in the English language: “race aside” — Swann, Blackwell, and Steele are all superb men, and I hope the voters have the sense to put them in office.

I think if I could command the election of any three candidates this season, I would command the election of that trio — race, mercifully, aside.

...

A reader from Maryland wrote the following — terribly amusing, terribly painful, terribly true — letter:

Jay,

This is an easy prediction, but it’s worth making: If the Democrats take both houses of Congress, Diebold machines could grow robotic legs and run out of the polls without making national news. But in every close GOP win, voting-machine security will become an issue.

Here in Maryland, there are only two possible headlines on November 8: “Despite Irregularities, Steele Claims Senate Win”; and “Cardin Victory Seen as Iraq Repudiation, Harbinger of ’08.”

...

Want a little language? We often talk about the mysteries of English, in this column — and how a foreigner ever learns to pronounce it. In a letter to me, a reader wrote of a well-known routine by Gallagher, the (one-named) comedian: Consider good vs. food; laughter vs. daughter; comb vs. tomb vs. bomb; and — best of all — go vs. do.

Yes, go vs. do — that takes the cake.