Matthew Continetti's editorial in last week's issue of the Weekly Standard--"The Inevitability Myth: Health care reform is not a fait accompli"--makes the case that, despite all evidence, health care reform may not be enacted after all. (Continetti does concede that "the chances of some sort of health bill passing, at some point, are by no means negligible." So he's telling us there's a chance.)

This sort of argument is actually the signature style of the Standard. A magazine like National Review specializes in making the case for conservative ideas. The Standard's contribution is to assert over and over that Republicans are succeeding, or at least doing better than you think they are. The idea is to buck up your side and encourage them to keep fighting, in order to ward off the self-defeating psychology of losing.

It's unclear to me why the subscribers of that magazine pay money to be the subjects of a disinformation campaign. To be sure, like any stopped clock, sometimes the Standard gets it right. But there's a distinctly Pravda-esque feel to the political coverage that makes back reading an enjoyable experience. With help from Noah Kristula-Green, I pulled together some examples:

Date: 09/29/2008

Headline: The GOP Brand: It's hot again.

The Good News: "While McCain may win the presidency, Republicans aren't likely to recapture either the Senate or the House. Their aim is to cut their losses--to fewer than 10 in the House and 3 or 4 in the Senate--and hope for better times in 2010. With their new and improved brand, they have at least a shot at this.

"It may seem far-fetched, but President Bush has helped. As Democrats have tried to tie McCain to him, Bush has mostly stayed out of the limelight."