On "Meet the Press", Matt Bai made a little hay out of one of the many truths which Liberals have been shouting into the Beltway Media Abyss for years.
First, Bush speechwriter and one of the Beltway's many emergency-backup-David Brooks-type persons, Michael Gerson, needed to impotently wring his hands the requisite number of times over the horror that he and has kind have wrought:
ANDREA MITCHELL: Have you ever seen Donald Trump and the Drunk Uncle on Saturday Night Live Weekend Update together? That was a pretty good imitation. But Michael Gerson, to the serious point of the level of invective, I haven't seen this, frankly, since the George Wallace campaign where attacks on the media at rallies really were one of the signature effects.Yes, yes. Yet another wingnut casino employee claiming to shocked!shocked! that gambling is etc. We've heard it all before. We fucking get it. You knew nothing about how your Republican Party was growing and harvesting its authoritarian meathead voters all these years.
MICHAEL GERSON: Well, it's important we realize what context this was in. He was praising Vladimir Putin, who is someone who has imprisoned and killed journalists. And this is where we need to make the distinction between the ridiculous and the dangerous.
This is a man now flirting with authoritarianism. Praising the leadership style of Vladimir Putin. So is this a rhetoric? He has extreme policies. And now he's praising a leadership style that really flirts with authoritarianism. This is a serious, serious matter.
Nothing.
And that is how you get to play in the NBA, kids!
So having made a show of rending the requisite garment, Andrea Mitchell tees up Mr. Bai:
ANDREA MITCHELL: But of course it is working and, Matt Bai, you wrote memorably this week why. That we are somewhat to blame. In fact you wrote, "It's clear now that Trump's enduring popularity is in no small part a reflection of an acid disdain for us. This is a simmering reaction to smugness and shallowness in the media, a parade of glib punditry unmoored to any sense of history or personal experience. It's about our love of gaffes and scandals, real or imagined, and our rigid enforcement of the politically correct." Discuss.`I feel obligate to mention a few things before we move along.
First, Mr. Bai's edgy, critique of the media as pack of callow, soulless Halperins hiding behind the word "journalism" is nothing new. Liberals have been been writing about it since before the dawn of blogging. No one paid us any mind because no one ever pays us any mind.
Second, Mr. Bai's edgy, new critique made it onto teevee because it conspicuously did not mention that result of this "parade of glib punditry unmoored to any sense of history or personal experience" is that our media's political narrative always bends in the Conservative direction. This is because...
Third, the only "politically correct" boundary which the media actually enforces is the iron rule of "Both Siderism".
And now, Mr. Bai:
MATT BAI: Oh, I've heard some discussion. Look, I've made this point. It's not always popular. We treat presidential politics and politics in general like a reality show and we have for years. I mean if you've been following the media in this campaign we set up NCAA brackets to match the seeds in the campaign. We order up every kind of garbage poll you can find. We literally treat our candidates as contestants on a game show to be voted off or vote on.So, volatile stuff right?
And I think there's a cost for that and the cost is that you set up a platform where someone like a Donald Trump can come and exploit it very handily, because he is the perfect reality show candidate. And I think at this point there is this symbiosis with the media and Trump.
I think at this point he has to be covered to the extent that he is because he is clearly leading, late in the campaign in the polls. But there's a long period in this campaign where I think we exaggerated his support because it brought ratings and it brought clicks and it was the great shiny story of the campaign. And I think we did a great disservice to the country.
Remember how Mrs. Allan Greenspan introduced Mr. Bai's remarks?
This is how Mrs. Allan Greenspan wrapped up Mr. Bai's remarksANDREA MITCHELL: ... Discuss.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Let's leave that here for a moment. We'll be back. And when we come back the war against ISIS...Because no way, no how will there ever be an honest "discussion" of any of this anywhere in the Beltway media. Doubly so for the "Both Siderist" stuff.
***COMMERCIAL BREAK***
Elsewhere, the Wrongest Man in America and ABC News' resident "brilliant, original thinker", Bill Kristol, continued collecting a sizable paycheck from a major American media company for being a blight on humanity while his colleagues larf it up:
BILL KRISTOL, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": The Republican primary voters don't like the media. So Trump's wars with the media helped Trump. They don't like the Republican establishment. They don't like the Republican congressional leadership. They've really talked themselves into a -- I mean, I think there's plenty to criticize in both the media and the Republican leadership. But they really -- a certain chunk of Republican primary electorate has talked itself into disliking the Republican establishment as much as -- almost as much as they dislike President Obama or Hillary Clinton.(Video available at Crooks & Liars thanks to Heather.)
And Trump has capitalized on that. The question is is that 25 percent of the Republican primary electorate? Is it 35 percent? Could it be 45 percent? And could he be the nominee?
KARL: But you've been predicting his demise for months.
KRISTOL: I have. But I'm sticking with it, you know.
(LAUGHTER)
KRISTOL: What's the point of changing now? I'd look pathetic.
(CROSSTALK)
KRISTOL: If I'm right, I can say I was early. And if I'm wrong... Yes, I won't get any credit for capitulating here in late December.
You now understand just about everything you need to know about the America Neoconservative mindset that not only lied into Bush's Iraqi Debacle with a straight face, but which continues to enjoy an honored place at the Beltway media table where they continue to demand ever more blood and more treasure be poured into into their mad, hegemonic schemes.
KRISTOL: The only Republican Hillary Clinton can beat is Donald Trump.Brilliant.
Original.
Thinker.
But you already knew that.
3 comments:
Just once, just once in this massive bullshit stream call both siderism where they get to recite talking points de jour would I love to see a journalist with the balls to stand up and say, "Oh no, now we both know that's just bullshit, so how about you answer what I asked you?" Maybe the networks could actually grow a set, and not fire the journalists who actually attempt this, who research the questions, who have facts to back up the follow up questions, and who actually will have the guts to say "No, I don't want talking points, I want an answer. I want to know what you actually think, or mean or say when you aren't in front of a camera." Please just once before I leave this planet, can someone just say it's bullshit, and mean it??
KRISTOL: What's the point of changing now? I'd look pathetic.
My reaction to that is the same as my reaction to Joel Stein's decision, in his year-end Awful Column for TIME Magazine, to join the ranks of those who are famous for being stupid: that particular ship has long since sailed, sunk, and inspired a heartwarming global blockbuster with DiCaprio and Winslet.
@ Bloody Bill Chickenhawk:
The only Republican who has as much chance as a snowball in Hell of beating Hillary Clinton is Donald Trump.
FIFY.
****************
The only long-term hope of the GOP is what it is doing right now: voter suppression and gerrymandering, with voting computer fraud as Plan B if Plan A (VS&G) fails.
Unless they can get rid of birthright citizenship, it will fail eventually, because Latinos will eventually become a majority of citizens.
The Pig People (apologies to the Tellarites and Miss Piggy) have made it clear that they will not allow Latinos to be declared "Honorary Aryans"--oops, "Whites", excuse me, wrong flavor of fascism--in order to re-establish a "White" majority, as the Irish and Continental European Catholics were re-classified as "Whites", when they were originally considered to be pale *BONG*s. (How The Irish Became White and all that.)
The white bigots' control of the GOP forces it into persistent minority-party status.
If the GOP suppresses its white bigots (Disclosure: I'm an Anglo paleface myself) to bring Latinos into the party to keep a majority, the bigots will bolt, and the GOP will STILL be a minority party.
The "Southern Strategy"--that is, the dog-whistle white supremacy strategy--paid off handsomely for years for the GOP, but that trumpeting you hear now is the GOP elephant with its cojones caught in the wringer of demographics.
The GOP and other conservatives fucked up my whole adult life by denying me the post-secondary education my brain was capable of handling. I don't come from a wealthy family, so I couldn't risk low grades, and so risk losing my scholarships, by choosing a difficult, but lucrative subject to major in. I had to pick something I knew I could ace.
SO I AM GOING TO ENJOY THIS.
"Do you know the Klingon proverb that revenge is a dish best served cold? It is very cold in space..." *evil grin*
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