Your diseased, "liberal" media

Ezra Klein has a post at TAPPED that hammers home a point made by media watchers every day all over the blogosphere.

Of course, the truth and strength of the point has changed nothing in the real world, but one feels compelled to say it over and over anyway.

This is a fine example of the form (lightly reformatted), so enjoy:

TAPPED: January 2006 Archives

PUNCH THAT AIR!

What a truly bizarre statement by [W.Post columnist] Sebastian Mallaby:

Of course, attacking Bushonomics is too easy, like shooting a lame duck. So I want to focus instead on Democrats' response to the Bush chest-thumping.

George W. Bush is the President of the United States of America.
His party, the Republican Party, controls the House of Representatives and the United States Senate.
Justices nominated by Republicans enjoy a majority on the Supreme Court.

Whether or not attacking Bushonomics requires pathetically little mental exertion, his economic policy is the only relevant economic policy in American government.

Given that, if his policies are, indeed, so awful that their manifold flaws are self-evident, it's incumbent on pundits to publicly eviscerate them until they cease being self-actualizing, not to stroll off and find more worthy targets for their giant, giant brains.

Sometimes, it truly seems that the class of folks paid to comment on D.C.'s doings haven't yet adjusted to the fact that this is a one-party town.

Drawing some manner of weird equivalence between the powerless Democratic Party and the dominant Republican majority is like a psychiatrist evaluating a rambunctious toddler and his neglectful parent and commenting that, since the parent's flaws are so obvious, he'll focus on the kid. The child has no agency, he can't make anything happen. Criticizing him is a useless task, though it may leave the shrink feeling worldly and superior, much as I imagine [Mallaby]'s bromide left him feeling.

It used to be that journalists were charged with speaking truth to power; now they don't even bother to distinguish the overwhelmingly empowered from the functionally powerless.

Related is a classic cartoon by Tom Toles from just after the 2004 elections (now the cover & title of a Toles collection) showing:

Bush at his desk, covered with miniatures of the "GOP White House," "GOP Senate," "GOP House," and "GOP Supreme Court" [asking] "Now who do we blame?"

He need not fear; the well-trained, habit-driven media will focus on the foibles and failures of Democrats, no matter how little they have to do with the present condition of the government or the country.   Politics--Policy   0 comment(s)   Add a comment...