First, consider the tone of the opening paragraph

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LIBERALS TOLD YOU SO, PART I

A good column by Stanley Kurtz in the Friday edition of National Review Online. Kurtz details how liberals in the press know very little about conservative thinking.

Upon reading this I was reminded of an editorial that appeared in the Des Moines Register back in January that dealt with the tax cuts enacted by the state of Iowa in the late 1990s. This editorial was chock full of ignorance about conservative philosophy. I have posted it here because I can’t seem to find it the Register website. (If a reader knows where it is, I’d much appreciate hearing from you.)

Anyway, the piece is so filled with stereotypes and distortions that telegram data I can’t dissect it all in one sitting. Thus, I will deal with it in parts. Here are my first two shots.

Once in a while, everyone should get to indulge the impulse to say I told you so. In the case of the editorial page, it would have to be phrased "we" told you so. We told you so about taxes.

A bit snotty, don’t you think? Instead of beginning a debate about tax cuts with some intelligent remarks, the author sounds like a first-grader who just won a playground argument. Perhaps the author is using some tongue-in-cheek, but given the preaching on the remainder of the column, I doubt it.

Second, the author of the piece is Richard Doak, editor of the editorial page at the Des Moines Register. Is it too much to expect that the op-ed editor at a major newspaper in Iowa would be able to discuss conservative thinking with more than cliches and half-baked thoughts? Such a thing is difficult to explain. But it does explain a lot of what passes for thinking on the Register editorial page.