THE 48-HOUR RULE – AT 8:29 A.M. ET:  I call it "the 48-hour rule."  It specifies that it takes 48 hours for the left to organize after an event, and start shaping the discussion to its usual low standards in the press and in the academy.

I saw it displayed most prominently in the days after the 9-11 attacks.  I named the rule after an event at Smith College, the ultra-feminist school in Massachusetts.  The attacks occurred on a Tuesday.  Americans were shocked, angry, and scared.  But within 48 hours the leftists at Smith put on a seminar on the attacks....long before we knew many definitive details.  The party line had to be restarted.  The debate had to be shaped.

Paul Ryan was named Romney's VP choice on Saturday.  The left stumbled around over the weekend, but I noticed that, yesterday afternoon, it started to find its true voice.  Consider these story headlines from today's New York Times:

Medicare Rises as Voters’ Issue in G.O.P. Gamble

Ryan Has Kept Close Ties to Donors on the Right

And yesterday, the usual suspects in the press emphasized, not Ryan's views on the issues, but the fact that he had been heckled.  From the Washington Post:

Ryan, on own, gets rude introduction to national campaign, is heckled in Iowa.

Ryan, according to The Times, is a "gamble" with "close ties to the right."  The image – what Walter Lippmann called "the picture in our heads" is starting to be formed.  The Post tells us that this candidate is a lightning rod, a quick candidate for heckling.  Must be a bad guy.

From MSNBC:

Romney struggles to square with Ryan's Medicare plan

Why, we don't even know if poor Mitt understands what Ryan stands for.

It will get worse.  Much worse.  Remember what was done to Sarah Palin, a sitting governor with an absurdly high approval rating.  Remember what was done to Dan Quayle, a sitting senator with a respectable reputation.

Paul Mirengoff notes at Power Line, reviewing initial polls:

...it may be worth noting that the initial reaction to Ryan is less positive overall than was the initial reaction to Sarah Palin. Moreover, John Edwards received the best initial reaction of any recent VP nominee, while Dan Quayle received the worst.

It's hilarious, but sad, that sleazeball Edwards, whose life always seemed to be in the shadows, got the best initial reaction, a reaction shaped by an admiring press that saw him as a true liberal.  Will the GOP ever understand press bias?

As we've noted, initial polling shows no great change in presidential preference over the Ryan choice.  But we'll be watching the impact in the next few days, as the left moves in and takes dead aim, with the enthusiastic help of its ink-stained helpers in the newsrooms.

Oh, by the way, Mitt Romney canceled some appearances in Florida yesterday, and his campaign actually said it was due to exhaustion.  Look, candidates get tired.  But that is something you never say.  You never suggest that your guy isn't up to it physically.  Again, we see amateurism in the Romney organization.  They haven't got much time to fix this.

August 14,  2012