Another weekend, and more brilliant commentary from one of the most insightful commentators/pundits out there: Glenn Greenwald.
Friday, it was: "Will the GOP's negativity produce a backlash?" Answering his rhetorical question, Greenwald says, unequivocally, "No!"
Every four years, the GOP unleashes unrestrained personality attacks on Democrats and exploits cultural resentments. Every four years, Democrats tell themselves that such attacks don't work and are counter-productive. And every four years, that belief is disproven. These "character" issues end up mattering largely because Democrats, in election after election, allow wars over "character" to be waged in a largely one-sided fashion.
Then, yesterday, here's Greenwald's take on the media, Palin, and anyone foolish enough to sit around waiting for the Rethug's to screw-up this cycle. His basic sentiment, 'With the U.S. media? Are you serious? Not gonna' happen...' And, IMHO, he's right. That's not a strategy, that's a setup for our failure this year.
"The mighty, scary press corps." As Greewald explains it, for the most part, the U.S. press corps is comprised of a bunch of whimps.
On the Republican ticket's hoped-for (anticipated by some Democrats) alienation of the press corps:
Several people in comments suggest/hope that Palin's refusal to submit to press questioning will alienate journalists and make them more intent on investigating her and subjecting her claims to scrutiny. A healthy journalistic instinct would indeed produce that reaction. But is that what we have?It isn't just that the Bush administration has been the most secretive in modern history (though it has been), but Dick Cheney seemed to take sadistic pleasure in purposely concealing from reporters even the most innocuous information, just to show he could. He even refused to say how many people worked in his office, or who worked there, or even where he was and what he was doing on any given day. Did that propel journalists to investigate him more aggressively or subject his claims to greater investigative scrutiny? Yes, that is a rhetorical question. A properly functioning press corps would become more adversarial and aggressive when treated with such contempt by the GOP. Ours becomes more browbeaten, more passive, more eager to please.
From personal experience on 25 campaigns, it's just a fact of life that the more you browbeat most (not all, but most) folks in the press, the more successful you are at furthering your own agenda. Greenwald's spot-on!
On the upcoming Charles Gibson interview with Palin on ABC:
It's not prescience when you simply describe the bleeding obvious. If I were a McCain adviser and wanted to have Palin sit with someone who is perceived as a "journalist" while knowing that no damage could possibly occur, I'd pick Charlie Gibson, too. There are many, many other equally good alternatives, but when it comes to wretched passivity and sycophantic establishment worship, the former "Good Morning America" host -- whose career was built on oozing amiability and inoffensiveness -- is as good as it gets.
I agree. There are houseplants that would provide a more challenging interview forum for Sarah Palin than Charles Gibson!
Yes, the bottom line is the U.S. MSM is comprised, primarily, of a bunch of go-along-to-get-along, would-be journalists. So, deal with it Democrats!
Time to wise-up and kick some GOP'er ass for a change!
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