I’m an angry partisan guy, who wants to see Democrats achieve ultimate victory and march Republicans into the Chesapeake Bay one-by-one, even though I also hate the Democratic party for being more Bayh than Che. I think the mainstream media’s coddling of the Republican party is what will ultimately destroy the GOP — it’s hard to see that you’re a permanent minority party of dying white guys when you’re getting fluffed by Dancing Dave et al. every day of the week and twice (or more) on Sunday. And that’s a good thing, at least for an ideological asshole like me.
But…the truth is that establishment media’s treatment of the debt talks is a disgrace, journalistically speaking:
It’s really amazing to see political reporters dutifully passing along Republican complaints that President Obama’s opening offer in the fiscal cliff talks is just a recycled version of his old plan, when those same reporters spent the last year dutifully passing along Republican complaints that Obama had no plan. It’s even more amazing to see them pass along Republican outrage that Obama isn’t cutting Medicare enough, in the same matter-of-fact tone they used during the campaign to pass along Republican outrage that Obama was cutting Medicare.
This isn’t just cognitive dissonance. It’s irresponsible reporting. Mainstream media outlets don’t want to look partisan, so they ignore the BS hidden in plain sight, the hypocrisy and dishonesty that defines the modern Republican Party. I’m old enough to remember when Republicans insisted that anyone who said they wanted to cut Medicare was a demagogue, because I’m more than three weeks old.
I’m sure Michael Grunwald, who wrote this, will be relegated to the hippie ghetto, far from the Broding crowd, because that’s how things work. But that’s what it means to be a reality-based journalist these days.
Sinnach
Hey, what has the Chesapeake Bay ever done to deserve that?
Yutsano
@Sinnach: It better not affect the flavour of the crab. I might get cranky otherwise.
amk
The steno msm hacks propagated all of mittbot’s lies all year long and yet the punk lost. So there is that.
And breitbart is still dead.
Hill Dweller
Grunwald is stating the obvious, but it can’t be said enough.
As an aside, everyone should read his book on the stimulus.
Frankensteinbeck
Same as it ever was.
Little Boots
oh, dougie.
defending the LBJ legacy is what we get in this country, and this party. that is it. that is all of it.
che? really?
the Conster
All day long I waited for a follow up question for every Republican on TV today who said that they had a detailed plan to avoid the fiscal cliff and asked “where was the president’s plan?” Not once were they asked any details of the plan or where the details could be found. I’m assuming it was because everyone’s on Team GOP and playing the game. Shameful doesn’t begin to describe it.
General Stuck
Our current political media is nothing more than glorified ambulance chasers, looking for drama and not the truth. But I don’t really buy the meme that they are in the tank for republicans, and don’t ever report their duplicitous politicking.
The truth is, I think, that we are focused on the right wing and what it says and does, and the media lacking for pointing out wingers epic hypocrisy. But seems to me, if you step out of the tribal viewpoint for a minute, Obama has done his own bait and switch programs on the republicans. It isn’t near as outrageous than the goopers pathological lying, but it does exist, and goes right past the media, as well as some on the prog left. And I glowingly approve of slow con PBO has stung the republicans with. Though it has been the dickens trying to explain it among some on my own side.
Chris
Lotta music based titles lately, innit?
srv
Is every editor an old white guy or someone who wants to be like them?
Hey Matt Taibbi, how about an expose of the editors?
Little Boots
@General Stuck:
honestly, what would you expect?
what’s your perfect media world?
amk
nate silver calls out the gopolitico two-bit twits.
General Stuck
@Little Boots:
One that the public doesn’t rate the media about used car salesman. Americans once trusted the 4 estate to give them some truth at what was going on, for thruth’s sake. Not anymore, or very much.
Spaghetti Lee
This whole thing has been an amusing failfest. Chambliss says that he might consider not obeying Grover Norquist, and the lockstep loony brigade starts screaming “Traitor! Traitor!” Only apparently, they can’t find anyone to the right of Chambliss-in freakin’ Georgia-who’s willing to give them their scalp. Erickson or Cain or Handel as a senator. Honestly! Who the fuck are they gonna ask next, Honey Boo Boo?
Villago Delenda Est
The vermin of the Village.
Wipe them out.
All of them.
Jewish Steel
Oh, DougJ. Why do you punish us like that?
Frankensteinbeck
@General Stuck:
I go with a combination of two things. First, I buy the ‘Cult Of The Savvy’ hypothesis almost entirely. National journalists are massively lazy but want to think they’re smarter than anyone else, so they pass along the horse race and deliberately avoid doing any research. That would both be too much work and would imply they’re idealists who don’t understand that the horse race is all that’s important.
Second, I think a lot of them are the Reagan Democrats they fetishize, rich people who tell themselves they’re liberal but want tax cuts, think manly posturing wins wars, and abusing the poor will build character.
Between the two, without really meaning to, they’re incredibly easy for Republicans to manipulate. Theoretically anyone could manipulate them, but Democrats lean to policies that help people and that’s boring and icky.
Little Boots
let’s all yell at doug, upstairs.
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
If you’ve been eating crabs out of the Bay, you’re dead man walking. Republicans can’t make that water any worse than it already is.
JCT
The current status of our 4th estate is simply pathetic on all levels. I still think we are lucky they didn’t fuck up the election with their manufactured narratives.
OK, I have a guaranteed grin — Robyn and her friend Kaleigh the Beagle kicking back on the couch
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Probably doesn’t hurt that they grew up in a world where “liberal” was a worse epithet than “Nazi.” They and much of the establishment are terrified of the label and anxious to prove they don’t fit the stereotype. Which, of course, means often just being conservative.
freelancer (iPhone)
Che is and was never a hero. Sorry, DougJ. I loathe Evan Bayh marching under the banner of the Democratic party as much as anyone who believes in democracy, liberalism, and equality; but in terms of radicals to our left that we need more of, it is not Che. We need Moyers and Sanders, not Guevara. Even If in jest.
Chris
@freelancer (iPhone):
Word!
Felonius Monk
@General Stuck:
Felonius Monk
@freelancer (iPhone):
General Stuck
@Felonius Monk:
Point taken. I was less than impressed by my own metaphor when I typed it.
Felonius Monk
@Spaghetti Lee:
Felonius Monk
@General Stuck: Wasn’t criticizing, just emphasizing. :)
General Stuck
@Felonius Monk:
Okay :)
cosima
I just finished up a painful research paper about the shite media reporting (or lack thereof) on another critical issue. I know it seems frustrating how bad they are about this, but it’s not as though they’re not completely irresponsible about reporting on other critical issues as well.
Is there anything at all that they report about responsibly? The dearth of “serious” journalist jobs, perhaps? Maybe not that either.
As my thesis went, so it goes here — supply & demand — if we don’t demand they won’t supply.
Was driving by the Denver Post’s building this evening, all lit up inside, pretty awesome lobby, with lots of artwork/imagery about the lofty journalistic ideals and principles — and the f$%&ing paper won’t even run Doonesbury. And they fired all of their liberal opinion columnists. Because the Colorado Springs crowd is the squeaky wheel and all of us liberals in Denver (you know, the majority of the Denver population) can go suck it.
Frankensteinbeck
One extra note on the Republican-friendly nature of national journalists as a class: I think they’re currently very pissed off at Obama for getting reelected. Karl Rove wasn’t the only meltdown on election night. The newsy set were humiliated in front of the entire country when their two most cherished narrative sacred cows were slaughtered before their eyes. ‘America Is A Center-Right Nation’ and ‘The Election Is A Squeaker’ both died very public and obvious deaths. It’s not just the shame, but the narrative IS reality to them. They believed it, and they were shown that everything they knew was a lie. Since it can’t be their fault, they blame Obama!
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think it’s at least as important that Obama doesn’t suck up to the media the way they expect. The inside the beltway media are a bunch of lazy fucks who want the news conveniently chopped up into easily digestible sound bites. Obama talks in complete thoughts that contain nuance and detail rather than slogans and malapropisms. That means the press has to work to cover him, and that’s the last thing they want. They’re much happier giving their attention to people who will give them stories on a silver platter.
red dog
The only way to stop this MSM crap is to not buy papers or listen or watch the idiots. Unfortunately this will drive them farther off the message in order to get any viewers any readers at all.
John O
“…far from the Broding crowd” was very good.
toschek
@Spaghetti Lee:
Hey leave Honey Boo-Boo alone, last time I checked Alanna endorsed Obama.
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qorkigPPbvU
ruemara
@Spaghetti Lee: To be fair, Honey Boo-Boo liked Obama. It’s a kid thing.
Kathleen
The MSM is white and elitist. It totally ignores people of color, older people, and poor people. I’ll never forget Diane Sawyer’s “shock” that single women and people of color could form a powerful voting bloc. MSM also refuses to even consider that people who the rethuglicans kick around and insult may become angry. Do they ever do a story about how people of color reacted to hatred directed at Obama? Bueller? Anybody? But they devote hours of air time to rich, suburban white people tea partiers and their “anger”.
FedSec
LOTS of good books examining the media narrative and the 2012 election will be coming our way!
Downpuppy
The APs guy for this kind of story is Stephen Ohlemacher, who’s simply useless. I’ve made him a pet project.
Mom Says I'm Handsome
I’m still holding onto my fantasy that BHO is going to shed his centrist/pragmatist ways now that he’s got no election to worry about, and reveal himself as a progressive badass. His fiscal slope proposal seems to point towards that, though it’s impossible to tell anything helpful from the steno pool. Maybe I should take the long view of his presidency, and focus instead on what kind of cookies to bake this afternoon.
PanurgeATL
@Chris:
You could explain a whole lot about our society ever since 1981, maybe before, that way. We’ve all had lots of training in the concept, left or right. In fact, it might be the fundamental principle we as a society live by.