From a post by Josh Marshall which considers and rejects ABC's defence of the horrible job its moderators did on that Clinton-Obama debate the other day. The defence is that all the phony scandals that ABC wanted to talk about go to the issue of "electability" and the eventual candidate will have to answer all those charges in the long run anyway.
Organized campaigns of falsehoods, distortions and smears used to be something most people thought of as a bad thing, if not something that's ever been too far removed from American politics. Now, however, members of the prestige press appear to see it not as a matter of guilty slumming but rather a positive journalistic obligation to engage in their own organized campaign of falsehood, distortion and smear on the reasoning that it anticipates the eventual one to be mounted by Republicans. In other words, we've gotten past the debatable rationale that journalists have no choice but to cover smears and distortions once they're floated into the mainstream debate to thinking that journalists need to seek out and air smears and distortions on the grounds of electability, as though the mid-summer GOP Swiftboating was another de facto part of the election process like primaries, conventions and debates.
Yup. The American press corps has so internalized the fact that its real job is to amplify all the crap that the right wing noise machine will throw at the Democratic candidate that it now believes it's performing a public service by starting early.
And make no mistake, Harper and company would love to have the Canadian press corps that well trained.
It's turned out that I prefer Clinton to Obama, and what I am reading from Clinton supporters is that a lot of the Sturm und Drang from the ABC debates is really about changing the narrative about Obama's weaknesses to ABC's format, when all prior debates have been rigged against Hillary. Not having a TV, I can't confirm this. Can anyone corroborate this?
what I am reading from Clinton supporters...
Sounds like the circular firing squad the Democrats are so famous for.
Not having a TV
is starting to look like it might be one of the smarter things you have done. I spend enough time cursing at mine. If I lived in the US I would have bankrupted myself replacing the ones I threw something at. I couldn't stand the endless election loop in that country.
Personally, I'm not sure which is less interesting - the election or the malfeasance of the traditional media in covering it. It's hard to get excited about a contest between a senile wing nut and a pair of conservatives. I'm not interested in a senile wing nut in the White House. As for the other two, I know Clinton and don't want her and I don't know Obama as well but am hard pressed to see how he would be worse (or much better).
I get the same feeling with Clinton and Obama as I do with the Conservatives and Liberals. I wouldn't vote for a Conservative if it was the only party on the ballot and somebody put a gun to my head. I would vote for a Liberal...if it was the only party on the ballot and somebody put a gun to my head.
Being aghast at the malfeasance of the traditional US media is beginning to be something like a preacher going to strip club just to be offended. Let's face it - Canadian politics and the Canadian media are bad enough without slumming in US politics and the US media.
I can't stand anybody's electoral politics, but I am interested in the malfeasance of the media, theirs and ours both.
I go slumming in USian stuff partly because the evil is so much further advanced there and therefore structurally clearer. Watch them long enough, and you can start to anticipate our clowns.
The weird thing is: our media are still much better than theirs, I think (not the blogosphere, but the msm) -- theirs have become truly absurd -- but their politicians, however repulsive and crooked and regressive, are a lot smarter and smoother than ours.
So my problem with Obama is the messianism. Obama became the instigation of yet another series of troikas at dKos. Clinton supporters were purged. That alone raises my hackles about Obama. Whenever Kos does the Stalin thing, you can be sure it was one of the better parts of the (D) party that fell victim.
As I watched it unfold, it was pretty much a case of Clinton supporters purging themselves from dKos with Kos saying good riddance. All the candidate diaries cut two ways. It reduced the amount of time I spend there by about 75% - time I can put to better use - but that is the result of the site now being largely devoid of content other than meaningless drivel.
If Hillary Clinton is "one of the better parts of the (D) party", all I can say is God Save America.
That's the standard MO of a Kos purge. We've Seen This Movie Before.
It's not Clinton who is one of the better parts. It's her supporters. The leaders are icons from a movement perspective. The problem is that Obama as an icon is decidedly creepier.