Thomas Frank under-performs yet again

Thomas Frank continues to underserve his readers. This time it's a disjointed rant based loosely on a deliberate mis-reading of a 28-year-old quote.

Wirthlin's point, that people act on their perceptions, is pedestrian, and the same sentiment can be found in the mouths of political operatives (and marketers and newspaper editors) of all political stripes.

If you view Frank's writings with sufficiently jaded eyes, it's amusing to see him waxing indignant about the Republican disconnect with Frank's version of reality -- which of course is really real.

A useful exercise might have been for Frank to engage in some, oh, let's call it reportage, wherein he could prove rather than assert that his reality is more real than the straw-man GOP version he offers.

Frank might have addressed the consistent thread of anti-Americanism that continues to dominate the far left and even the near left, such as the amazing circumstance by which the Democratic Party two years ago was in a conflict of interest -- that the worse America did in Iraq, the better for themselves -- and prominent Democrats still apparently desire American defeat in Iraq.

If you seek to read a fact-free essay that consists of a leftist agreeing with himself, Frank once again delivers. If you seek someone to challenge your thinking, or expose you to new ideas, new facts, what one might call "news" -- seek elsewhere.

Memo to the Wall Street Journal's editors: please raise your expectations of Thomas Frank to the same level you hold other writers on your page. His track record is sub-par.