'Lane ends in 200 feet' – meaning the Dems' 'moderate lane'

What follows may amount to nothing. Or, it may amount to something. Or, it may even amount to an unimaginable big deal. Let me lay it out.

Our blighted journalistic profession gives us very little to brag about these days. One palpitating, enthralling exception is the work of writer and columnist Peter Barry Chowka, who has earned the title "Peter the Great" many times over. His most recent distinction is in noting, uncovering and laying wide open a situation regarding some highly unusual personnel on the left-hand side of the Democratic presidential derby.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Peter discovered that presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, whom many fondly call "Mayor Pete") was connected to Bernie Sanders in a most unusual way. What do we make of it? I'll give you the facts, and you make of it what you will.

In the year 2000, while still in high school, a young Peter Buttigieg submitted a written essay in the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest, and won the whole thing, including a $3,000 cash award and all kinds of prestigious recognition. Caroline Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy were among the contest judges.

Our normal instinct is to hug, kiss and shake hands with everybody and say, "Wow, isn't this a thrilling coincidence, an early indication of political acumen and an impressive claim to fame?" There are good reasons however, to wipe that smile off your face, namely, the subject of the winning essay and the compliments and praise Buttigieg showered upon him, a man whom young Pete felt best exemplified a "profile in courage." That man was Bernie Sanders. Buttigieg was not only lavish in his admiration of Sanders, but was absolute in his conviction that his encomium celebrating Sanders was entirely deserved and justified.

Is this problematic? Well, it's certainly no more problematic than, say, the revelations (I call them revelations even though they, too, were hardly trumpeted by the media for all to see) that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were both big fans (some might even say disciples) of Saul Alinsky!

But wait – there's more! Chowka also revealed that Buttigieg's father was a big fan of Marxism in general, and of Italian Communist Party founder Antonio Gramsci in particular.

In other words, those moderate Democrats across the land who have been reassured, based on Pete Buttigieg's more recent rhetoric, that moderation is alive and well inside the Democratic Party may now suddenly find that reassurance is null and void.

Before "Peter the Great's" discovery, there indeed appeared to be enough moderate lanes available to make sure no Democrats would have any trouble finding their way on Election Day. Now, all of a sudden, thanks to Chowka's detective work, moderate Democrats have been made to feel like refugees. There's another radical-left movement we knew nothing about. In the light of these revelations, real solid, good old moderation is reduced to a happy memory. Yesterday we thought everything was in order. Today, thanks to Peter Chowka, we know better!

Maybe the only way we can find out for sure is to elect Mayor Pete president and analyze his early decisions. Meanwhile, enjoy your "moderate Democrat" lane as long as you dare. It may close any time now, without warning.