May we be struck dead, so help us, cross our hearts and hope to die, the New York Times of July 29, 1968, on page three, column two, paragraph six, used the word “ultraliberals.” A reporter spotting the word dropped everything and sent out a ten-bell to the lexicographical community. But then he resumed reading and, wouldn’t you know it, the Times contrived a context that robbed the word of all its joy. The Soviet Union, in its dealings with Czechoslovakia, is insisting on the removal from leading government positions in that country of the “ultraliberals.” So that ultraliberals have now become the anti-Communists. So we can relax, after all: God’s in his heaven, and the New York Times hasn’t really recognized the existence of an ultraliberal.
The Republican platform is being written aswegoto press and while it is unlikely that the document itself will provide any ideological disturbances, the process of drawing it up has gone so smoothly that 1) the Democrats are going to look pretty unruly when McCarthy and Humphrey start squabbling over their platform, and 2) the Republican candidate will look pretty good standing on a platform that satisfies liberals and conservatives— and sounds a lot more convincing than the Democrats’ e.g.: 1) when it calls for law and order, to say the least, 2) when it calls for a swift and honorable peace in Vietnam, 3) when it reiterates traditional Republican solutions for the urban crisis—decentralization, local control, private initiative. Suddenly the GOP will find itself in confluence with what black Americans are beginning to believe; the Democrats, with their history of welfare gigantism, overspending, and overcentralization, will just sound old-hat.
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