Letters to the Editor
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Penn, Pennsylvania : How the new and old media are missing the story
Clinton gave Penn the boot with the message that the firing was about the Columbia trade deal. But why the lag from the "revelation" to the firing?
I think Penn's number has been up for awhile. Among other reasons, some Clinton supporters (including Walsh here at Salon) have been open about seeking a male scapegoat for Clinton's troubles, and I think there is a sense of evening up the score with Solis Doyle's departure. That's dumb politics if true, though I think there are also excellent reasons to get rid of Penn.
But, the message the Clintons want to send was on trade deals. I think there is a slow burn going on among working class Americans regarding the tax returns. Despite claims by Glenn Greenwald and others that the tax returns would be covered extensively by the media, the exact opposite has happened: A virtual blackout on news and commentary. That's not just MSM, but also the established new media on the web. SNL, the "comedy" mouthpiece of the Clinton campaign, pooh-poohed the notion that the Clinton's money mattered, and focused on the book deals, not the corporate-whore speeches.
I don't think there's been a bigger disconnect between news media and what people are actually talking about, at least not since the web offered an alternative set of news outlets. Clintons tax returns are making working people second-guess their support for her. Unlike say, the Kennedys, the Clintons do not have an iconic history of service to the working class, despite their wealth. Well, except in the minds of the Clintons themselves. The Clintons wealth and service, at best, reminds people of a guy who wins the lottery, gives some money to his church, and flies his buddies to the Super Bowl. There are no policy initiatives or themes that help the Clintons with the working class, nothing really Kennedy at all.
The fallout from the taxes is a slow burn, but a long burn. It can easily extend through the next six weeks into the Pennsylvania elections. The smugness of new media outlets like Salon, or old outlets like SNL, works against Clinton in the long run. People are sensing the refusal of the winners of the Clinton-Bush years to engage the needs of the losers, which is most of us. The political and economic elites are building a gated community for themselves behind irony gates.
But people outside the gates pay their taxes in a week, another reminder of what the Clintons have, and they have not. And then it's the long wait for the rebate check. There's a long time to think while doing the bills at the kitchen table. Unemployment is up in Pennsylvania, fairly dramatically in the past month. People know others who have gotten a pink slip. Maybe the black guy who is on the TV all the time is right, time for a change. Hope sounds good. Hillary isn't on as much. She looks like she might be spending too much of the family fortune at her local bar. Does she even go to bars though? Probably too rich to go to bars. The black guy is rich, too. Not as rich though. Not even close, just lawyer rich. Not Arab speech rich. And gas is up, way up. The war drags on, expensive, why. Your friend's son got killed there, a year back. Clinton voted for that one, the black guy didn't.
Maybe it is time for a change.