A New Political Map of America

The abysmal failure of commentators and columnists, not to mention pollsters, to understand what was happening in this country until a few days before the nomination of Barry Goldwater is being matched these past few weeks by the punch-drunk obtuseness of their post-convention analysis. While their confusion has some soul-satisfying aspects, we do not need to go all the way with General Eisenhower in condemning them root and branch. Some, it is true, are blinded by ideology; some are either so stupid, or “other-directed” that they could not conceivably hold an idea or recognize a fact different from those accepted by the majority of their colleagues; some few may be corrupt. But there remain to be accounted for the intelligent, honorable, and normally objective, who exist in no small numbers in the American press corps. Despite honesty and intelligence, they find themselves almost to a man in the same plight as their colleagues. An examination of the cause of their confusion may be instructive.

Meyer

FS

About the Author

Frank S. Meyer

Frank S. Meyer was a senior editor of National Review.

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Frank Meyer

The abysmal failure of commentators and columnists, not to mention pollsters, to understand what was happening in this country until a few days before the nomination of Barry Goldwater is being matched these past few weeks by the punch-drunk obtuseness of their post-convention analysis. While their confusion has some soul-satisfying aspects, we do not need to go all the way with General Eisenhower in condemning them root and branch. Some, it is true, are blinded by ideology; some are either so stupid, or “other-directed” that they could not conceivably hold an idea or recognize a fact different from those accepted by the majority of their colleagues; some few may be corrupt. But there remain to be accounted for the intelligent, honorable, and normally objective, who exist in no small numbers in the American press corps. Despite honesty and intelligence, they find themselves almost to a man in the same plight as their colleagues. An examination of the cause of their confusion may be instructive.

Meyer