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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
It is only by going over onto offense that the Dems will ever overcome this nonsense. Dana's parroting could well be made bi-directional if we made a full-throated effort.
It remains to be seen whether this time around will be any different. There's a lot of reason to think that the outcome will be the same as the previous 20 million times...
Glenn, you've written many posts like this, exposing the media's apparent willingness to serve as enablers in shallow personality-based politics.
I appreciate your continued highlighting of the media's stupidity, but since the media isn't showing any signs of changing course, is there anything the Dems (or anyone) can do about it? What's the best way to fight back without lowering ourselves to the level of the Republicans?
I used to think that the news is ratings-driven and shallow personality-based attacks are what viewers want to see/read. But now I'm convinced that the majority of beltway journalists are just too dirt stupid to cover an election any other way. Surely a moment of reflection would make a journalist of any minimal intelligence realize that the Cokie Roberts-style "It's out there" argument for covering sleaze and inanity makes no sense if he/she is the one actually putting it out there?
also wrote this recently:
"Rather than serving up the "straight talk" he promises, McCain is enthusiastically jumping aboard with every low-rent, fearmongering, cock-sucking presidential aspirant who's ever traveled the Lee Atwater/William Safire highway."
In fact he wrote this on 16 June, two weeks ahead before Chait's love letter/article was published.
http://www.alternet.org/story/88211/mccain%27s_playbook%3A_hate%2C_fear_and_caveman_politics/
It is not as simple as this, but . . .
Follow the money. Who owns the media? From GE to the Los Angeles Times, to MySpace, the individuals at the top of the corporate pyramids have everything to do with the narratives that media presents to U.S. media consumers. Anything that threatens the elites (and they are the elites) within the ruling business class will be attacked in any way possible.
We are engaged in a culture and class war that has and will continue to affect the future of our society and global civilization. It is not about Democrats and Republicans or liberals and conservatives. It is about the business class and the wage and salary class. Those are the two loosely aggregated groups that are slugging it out right now.
I don't blame the citizens of this country for their behaviorally conditioned responses to the brainwashing techniques of people like Rove. I blame the people who let people like Rove get away with it. By the way, why isn't he in jail?
When Karl Rove characterized Obama as "the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by," two things occurred to me. First, I was not sure that Obama had ever in his life been a member of a country club. Second, it sounded more like he was describing George W Bush or maybe even himself. He may have also been describing a good portion of the establishment beltway media. That could be one reason they so eagerly gobble it up.
As part of the GOP slime machine they like to take their failings and try to project them on their oponents. Thanks to such a compliant corportate media the attempt is too often successful.
Note: I love the “country club reference”. It was not too long ago that Obama could not even hope to join a country club where Karl Rove and his ilk were members. It actually may still be true today.
But now I'm convinced that the majority of beltway journalists are just too dirt stupid to cover an election any other way.
This is probably the single most overlooked, under-appreciated fact in media criticism. Of course, they are hired and then promoted for exactly that reason -- their empty-headedness is an important asset. It's what ensures that they do nothing that is contrary to their organizational mores. When I hear people like Brian Williams or Charlie Gibson speak without a script, the shallowness never ceases to amaze. They're far from evil or manipulative - they're just dumb (it's not ad hominem, just descriptive), and much of their behavior is explained by that.
The more complex questions, and nefarious motives, are found at the organizational level -- why media organizations behave as they do. But the media stars are just there to advance that strategy, and dumbness -- or at least uncritical digestion of what they hear -- is an important asset.
w/ Jim Pharo.
Rovian tactics, for whatever reasons, seem to "work" remarkably well.
So adopt them. Taking the high road yields four years of wound-licking and post-defeat self-examination.
Glenn,
This was another excellent and insightful column.
I'm wondering if you think it is time, though, to start discussing the rather obvious "code word" subtext in these personality driven attacks.
As you are clearly aware, the attacks on Kerry and Edwards as "french" or"effete" are more than anything code words for homosexual, and more generally different, not one of us.
"Obama is arrogant and presumptuous" is something very different, and in some ways even darker. You surely know that this must be code words for what the nastiest racists among us 40 years ago simply would have called "uppity nigger."
Arrogant and presumptuous has NEVER, EVER been a bad thing among politicians. We like our politicians arrogant and presumptuous. Nothing could describe George W any better. Ronald Reagan was an ACTOR: talk about presumptuous. We like our politicians arrogant, confident,
charming and presumptuous.
Some people HATE African Americans who are that way.
This personality" driven stuff is more than that. It is an artful and calculated attempt to bring pure, un-adulterated racism into the campaign (exactly the way "effete" is intended to bring pure, adulterated homophobia into the campaign).
Do you think it is useful to start calling this stuff by its most proper name, racism?
Cheers,
dave
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
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