The media are doing what they know best: changing the subject. They are desperate that their boy in the White House is circling the drain. They need to change the subject to something--anything--else. Pelosi is a convenient target. If she had stayed home this week, they would have found something else.

With all the blogs now defending Pelosi, the corporate media have acheived their objective. Even though Joe Kline is deserting the ship like the rat he is, the media and much of the blogosphere has stopped talking about the Bush disaster and is instead talking about something else.

That's the whole point.

Click on the link Glenn provided and you'll get Schneider's bio at ABC. He is their VP for public relations. And he should be fired for doing a piss-poor job. Talk to any competent PR person, and they'll tell you that the first thing you have to do to move beyond the problem is to acknowledge it! You have to take ownership of the problem first and foremost, or nothing you say will be credible.

This is great. Drezner says:

I also implicitly assumed that if administration officials -- many of whom had displayed a fair amount of competence in the Bush 41 prosecution of Gulf War I....

Of course, those officials in Bush 41 refused to invade Iraq!! They said it would be a quagmire. That is how they displayed their competence.

I remember how the press treated Jack Kennedy. Everything associated with him was cool, sailing, touch football, a wife in a pillbox hat who spoke French. If he had windsurfed, that would have been cool.

Today's press corps would of course treat all these as proof that JFK was completely out of touch with average Americans.

Back then, everything JFK did was cool, because they liked JFK. Now everything a democrat does is ridiculous and stupid, simply because it's a democrat who is doing it.

Yes, Glenn, the move to the center cliche is just a smokescreen. The whole point of this exercise is for Obama to demonstrate to the corporate ruling class that is is safe, that he will, like Steny Hoyer and Pelosi, take direction. The ruling class has governed through the republicans so ruthlessly that it has, as even the republicans admit, destroyed their brand. They are now considering whether to govern through the democrats--but need Obama to demonstrate that he will knuckle under. The FISA vote is a good litmus test for them.

They don't really trust McCain--notice how they even tried to prop up Fred Thompson in his place--and could never abide Clinton. Now that the ruling class has pushed Clinton off the stage and sees how erratic McCain is, they are probably looking to make a deal with Obama. That's what this is all about.

Glenn, you talk about the media's role as passing on official government propaganda. Their role is really to pass on the propaganda of the right wing power structure. Since the right wing now controls the administration, the media naturally goes with the administration's narrative. Of course, the press had the same role when Clinton was in power, passing along right wing propaganda AGAINST the administration. I think it is useful to keep the distinction clear. The media doesn't suck up to any sort of power--just the power of their corporate masters.

Other than Whitewater and Lewinski??? That's like the old saying, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

And remember how Reagan was the teflon president? Of course the only people capable of applying the teflon were the media.

Yes, of course Clinton appeased the corporate masters. And Obama appearns to be happy to do so as well. But the right wing wants total control. That's what authoritarianism is all about. So if Obama gets in, the press will again become adversarial. Indeed the press is already doing it's best to prop up McCain and undermine Obama.