Back in January, you may remember, I was holding my breath to see if Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to make an attack on the news media a winning strategy in the Florida primary would work (see “A Kick in the Pants” in The New Criterion of February, 2008)—or, failing that, if it would have any effect at all. Then I doubted that any good could come of such a move, but I had allowed myself to hope and was therefore disappointed when Mr. Giuliani’s lack of “momentum,” that most prized journalistic commodity of all successful primary candidates, proved far more momentous than his slap at the media. The media had, apart from the isolated article I saw, declined even to notice—let alone respond to—it, and Mr. Giuliani’s effort to gain electoral lift by picking a fight with what opinion polls show is one of the most disliked institutions in America died a-borning.

Yet maybe I w ...