And then Saint Clinton Moderated The Communists...

Atrios does a great job here of rehashing how most political media types view the last 30 years:

The story the Dem party likes to tell itself is that it went all crazy hippie dippie in the 70s and 80s, elected that communist Jimmy "deregulation" Carter to the presidency, then nominated noted communists Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis who were deservedly destroyed. During this period, a time when half of the party were conservative southern racists, the party didn't do enough for the Real American white working (male) class. Then along came the DLC and the new Democrats and the new new Democrats and the new new new new new new new Democrats and they moderated the party by informing big business that we were their friends too and we'd love their money. Then the party enhanced its appeal by backing off on support for gun control and abortion rights.

By doing all of this the party ushered in the great Glorious Age of Democrats, otherwise known as the election of Bill Clinton, which was followed by a Republican takeover of the House, their frequent control of the Senate, the destruction of the welfare system, the election of George W. Bush, some lovely little wars, and out of control banksters that destroyed the economy and got rich doing it. Yay great moderation.

Obviously that isn't quite the story they like to tell themselves, but hopefully you get the point. Anyway the real point is that while the narrative is always about how the Dems turned their backs on the white working class, during the grand "rescue the party from the hippies" period, it isn't as if they suddenly did a bunch of stuff to help these people. They mostly just tried to convince them that they love guns and war and don't much like those abortion sluts either. Also, too, don't worry white working class, we aren't going to do anything to help you but we aren't going to help the blah people either.

This is absurd of course. The TL;DR version of this history is that corporate power has grown wildly during this time period and Bill Clinton made a conscious effort to move the Democratic party to the right on economic issues because he wanted them to also get a share of Wall Street's money for his side as well.

Defenders of this will say that it was needed to stay competitive electorally, but we're living with the result now: Two corporately owned political parties who differ mostly on social issues and whether or not we should try to help those in need a little or not at all. It's worth remembering we didn't get to this point because the Democratic party was ever "too liberal".

Death To CNN

I really can't get over this:

David Gregory Humiliates Himself More Than Usual

We know from watching David Gregory over the years that he simply isn't that bright, and has been promoted 5-6 levels too high into his current position as MTP host. He's like a smarter Luke Russert, in that all he knows is DC conventional wisdom, and since most of that currently involves anger at the NSA leaker and the reporting that brought this to light, it's no wonder that he says something this absurd. Greenwald's response is pretty damn satisfying.

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When DC Journalists Take A Stand

In his typically brilliant column on Bob Schieffer's idiocy, Alex Pareene makes a really important point that I too find endlessly fascinating.

It is always interesting to see what subjects “objective” press figures like Schieffer feel comfortable expressing personal opinions about. Schieffer would never have expressed explicit support or disapproval of, say, the Senate comprehensive immigration reform package. He wouldn’t give an endorsement in a domestic election. But on this issue, Schieffer feels free to align himself with the state and against the state’s enemies. It isn’t a particularly surprising expression of allegiance, but it’s still useful to be reminded that many of our most Serious Journalists think of themselves as a partner, and not adversary, of power.

And that is exactly the point. Political journalists seem themselves as part of the game, part of the story, and a part of our government's power structure, not a check on it. The scariest part is that unlike if Schieffer had given a strong defense of the ACA, he doesn't even see a commentary like this as making a political statement at all. Everyone of importance in DC knows that this is the correct opinion to have about Snowden, so much so that it doesn't even trip his "I'm not allowed to take a position on anything" cardinal sin of serious journalism sensor.

Shit like this is exactly the problem with so much political journalism. They preach objectivity, but objectivity as they see it is basically impossible. They hold strong opinions, and express those opinions in writing every day under the guise of calling balls and strikes, not realizing that everything from what they choose to write about to how they cover the story reflects their own biases. Treating Benghazi and the IRS thing as super serious scandals while ignoring years up high unemployment and a government run predatory lending program is bias. A bias towards stupidity over substance counts. But in DC journalism, as long as your keep your biases against the right people and away from the wrong subjects, no one will ever question your objectivity.

Douche Convention Held at White House

The President of the United States can call on basically anyone in the world to give them advice. Following his speech on national security last week, here is who Obama invited to the White House:

President Obama held a private meeting with top national security journalists on Thursday afternoon following his national security policy address at the National Defense University in Washington, POLITICO has learned.

Present at the meeting were Thomas Friedman, The New York Times columnist; Gerald Seib, The Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau chief; Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor of The Washington Post; David Igantius, The Washington Post columnist; Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic correspondent and Bloomberg View columnist; and Joe Klein, the Time magazine columnist.
The meeting, which was scheduled to last for one hour but lasted for two, was held in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

Wow, what a loathsome/stupid group of people. I'm guessing they spent that second bonus hour pushing for a re-invasion of Iraq.

Matt Taibbi on David Brooks

Oh man, just read this whole thing. It's too goddamn funny.

Joe Scarborough is Everything Wrong With America

Let's have a contest for dumbest tweet of the year. This may have already won.

"Wayne LaPierre's views on guns is as extreme as Paul Krugman's views on debt." Discuss.
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) February 14, 2013

Potential Quote of the Year Alert

ABC analyst Nicole Wallace on Marco Rubio:

"He’s everything we need and more. He’s modern. He knows who Tupac is. He is on social media”

Krugman Invades the Moronic DC Happy Talk Bubble

If you're looking for a show that combines all the worst elements of DC groupthink in one place, morning Joe is the show for you. Brethless talk about deficits and serious discussions over the urgency of cutting social security and medicare is discussed by the Mark Halprins and Harold Fords of the world. Earlier this morning their world was invaded by Paul Krugman, and some predictable hilarity ensued.

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I wish he had been more aggressive in attacking the general premise of Medicare cuts and emphasized that it is a health care spending problem not a medicare problem, but I can see why he would take a less combative approach on their show. Still, it was fun to watch him repeatedly point out that their biggest obsession (that the deficit is going to kill us all) is basically bullshit.

In DC Pundit World, It's Only White People That Count

Here's Josh Marshall:

From an article just out from Politico …

If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That’s what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it’s possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.

A broad mandate this is not.

As I’ve written many times before, the second rate product. If this is a subject that interests you, I’d encourage you to read the piece I linked right there.

Or to be more specific, Obama’s winning but not with the best votes. I mean really, if you can’t win with a broad cross-section of white people, can you really be said to represent the country? Really.

Well said.

Most Political Punditry is Completely Worthless

Not all of it obviously, but I'm mainly talking about things you see on TV that don't involve Chris Hayes and things you read in print that aren't Nate Silver.

And when I say it's worthless, I'm not saying that all talking about elections is worthless. It just means that people saying things that go directly against the available data measuring this stuff because it makes the race more interesting. The last couple of weeks online have led to a clash between the Nate Silver/other political modelers going up against the politico/morning joe version of the world. Basically after Romney got a bounce post 1st debate, the political media worked itself into a froth claiming the race was now 50/50 and a complete toss up. The problem, according to those that actually study polling data, was that while Romney had improved in most swing states, he was still trailing in almost all the keys states needed to win, especially Ohio, the most crucial of them all. Yet most of the political media didn't care, writings stories day after day about how tight the race was, when it was clear for weeks since that debate that Romney had moved no closer to actually winning the presidency.

If you're looking for an example of worthless journalism that I'm talking about, read this article from the SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER, (the person in charge of reporting politics) for the Washington Post. It starts explaining Obama's polling lead in Ohio, and you think it might be going in the logical direction... BUT THEN:

After reviewing all of the available public polling data as well as talking to operatives in both parties about the private polls they are privy to, we are convinced that Ohio is a 1-3 point race in President Obama’s favor at the moment.

That — coupled with the state’s electoral history and the absolute necessity for Romney to win the state if he wants to be president — leads us to move it back to the “tossup” category.

Put simply: Ohio today has much more in common with Iowa, Florida, New Hampshire and Virginia (all “tossups” in the Fix rankings) than it does with New Mexico and Minnesota (“lean Obama” states in the Fix rankings).

Seriously look at those sentences, split apart.

Sentence 1: Obama is leading by 1-3 points consistently in all polls, and based on all the information we have at our disposal.

Sentence 2: Because Romney "needs to win the state", Chris Cillizza, the lead politics reporter for the Washington Post, has decided that the state should be considered a tossup.

Sentence 3: Ohio has more in common with the states we're calling tossups than the ones we are calling "lean Obama". What do they have in common? Why is any of this relevant to how the state will vote? Why is it more important than the ACTUAL DATA, SITTING RIGHT THERE AT YOUR DISPOSAL???

These are the jokes that report our election coverage. Why do they do this? Mainly because they provide absolutely no value at all to the coverage of politics and elections, so they bullshit like this to pretend that they do. Would people be less informed if somehow the politics section of the post was missing one day? No, actually they'd be better informed by not reading garbage analysis and made up story-lines that have no basis in reality. The sooner this type of political coverage goes away, the better.

About the Sunday Shows...

This is an edition of what atrios said:

To me, the problem with the Sunday shows isn't that they suck, it's that so many moderately engaged people don't understand that they suck. They've bought into the idea that what Very Serious People Who Care About Politics Do is watch these shows, that the proper thing for an engaged citizen to do is to turn on Dancing Dave's Clown Circus and absorb the massive amounts of wisdom it generates.

I used to watch Meet the Press and similar shows for this reason as well. I'd get insanely frustrated, but pissing me off isn't the problem. Neither is the fact that they have stupid people lying and talking about fake problems.

The problem is that watching those shows is seen as how an "engaged citizen" pays attention to politics when in reality watching those shows makes you dumber about current events 90% of the time. Similar to the lying during the debate, the portion of the american electorate that cares enough about politics to flip on wednesday's debate was treated to a endless stream of bullshit that would make them less informed on the differences between the candidates than they were before they watched it.

The braindead media is dangerous, and doing it's best to kill our democracy.

Watch up with Chris Hayes. Get smarter.

But then again, it's not train readers I'm worried about.

David Brooks Is Wrong on the Internet

David Brooks wrote a column about Chris Hayes' book, and I think he's saying that today's elites don't work as hard because they aren't white protestant males. Which is nice of him to say out loud, but um... no. Also, his column also contains this paragraph:

I’d say today’s meritocratic elites achieve and preserve their status not mainly by being corrupt but mainly by being ambitious and disciplined. They raise their kids in organized families. They spend enormous amounts of money and time on enrichment. They work much longer hours than people down the income scale, driving their kids to piano lessons and then taking part in conference calls from the waiting room.

No. They don't work harder. Stop. Conference calls in the waiting room? Shut up. Seriously, stop. You are one of our elites and you wrote something this fucking stupid. Read that first sentence, it barely makes sense. You are the problem.

Luke Russert Sucks

Not that we didn't already know this, but considering my slight obsession with his stupidity, I figured I would mention that one of my favorite writers Alex Pareene took some time to write about lil' Luke:

But our target here is Russert, and he is not personally responsible for NBC’s decision to bequeath him a broadcasting job. If we focus on the work and not the means by which Russert got the job, things don’t look much better. Initially at least, the grownups on the air always seemed to be holding Russert’s hand as he tried to remember his lines, as if he were a child and not a fully grown college graduate and professional. It’s obvious that everyone who knew his father loves Luke. But everyone’s affection for the kid is not transmissible through a television set, alas, and Russert’s appearances seemed like some rich guy’s kid’s piano recital suddenly taking place in the middle of a professional orchestra’s concert.

His initial role was as MSNBC’s semi-official “young person” correspondent, because reporting on what he himself was seemed the least ridiculous thing to have Luke Russert suddenly doing in a national cable news network’s presidential election coverage. And in his role as a young person reporting on what young people think of presidential politics, Russert sounded like an old person — like an old Washington lifer — talking about what he thinks the young people today are all about. (No self-respecting young person, to use one brief example, uses the term millennial.)

Here’s an early report:



This is like a master class in pointless political pseudo-analysis. All the resources and staff of MSNBC at his disposal, and the package still looks and sounds like it was put together for a high school civics class presentation. (I mean, except that Larry Sabato shows up halfway through. I guess it is professional Washington journalism!) Kids are turning off their reality TV and tuning into the real-life Amazing Race!Facebook and stuff, some experts say! Only time will tell. For MSNBC, I’m a person with no business having this job.

(This is the piece that Russert concluded by making a minor gaffe that set the right against him, for a moment: The “smartest kids in the state” go to UVA, he told Matt Lauer, so they naturally favor Obama. This was actually just poorly stated conventional wisdom, not really “liberal bias” — by “the smartest kids in the state” he meant, he later explained, kids “from affluent, highly educated households.”)

Months after hiring Russert, Steve Capus, president of NBC News, called him one of the network’s “rookies of the year,” which doesn’t reflect well on NBC’s 2008 rookie class. (Russert returned the favorwith effusive praise for his boss.)

On the basis of his impressive reporting and ease in front of the camera still being named Russert, Luke was promoted, after the election, to Congressional correspondent. That’s the contempt with which NBC News views the occupation of journalism. To make Luke Russert a Congressional reporter is to say, “we believe that this job requires no particular knowledge, training or skills. If a German Shepard could be trained to speak, it could perform this work.” (That’s true of most cable news work, granted, but it really doesn’t have to be.) Proper reporting on the House of Representatives is actually difficult and largely thankless work, generally done by very hard-working and underpaid reporters. The assignment was transparently NBC’s attempt to help Russert develop chops, and what it has yielded thus far is the time Charlie Rangel called Luke dumb, which MSNBC turned into a two-day story.

NBC seems to be keeping Russert employed in the hopes that he’ll eventually develop an ability to simulate gravitas. Hopefully “Meet the Press” will still be on the air by the time Luke has mastered his serious face.

His Twitter feed presents a perfectly dull person with perfectly banal thoughts. When he drifts into attempted solemnity it’s usually more amusing than his actual attempts at humor. (More quality insight, right here.) It’s precisely what you would imagine the result would be if the elite Beltway press somehow collectively raised a child from birth — which is, in effect, what actually happened. He subscribes to every shibboleth of Washington conventional wisdom and shows fealty to all the proper institutions.

Read it.

It won't disappoint.

Things You Can't Say In DC

Two respected important people (one of them is even a conservative!) said something that you are not allowed to say:

Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann are well-known in the Beltway. They work at big-time think tanks (Brookings and American Enterprise Institute), appear on television chat shows, and write books and op-eds that powerful people pay attention to.

Lately, though, it seems they've become dangerous men.

Mann and Ornstein recently wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post (4/27/12) based on their new book. In it, they argued that whining about increased polarization or partisanship in politics obscures a central truth: This problem is not seen in equal measure on both sides. The headline summed it up: "Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem."

They wrote:

    The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

And the piece pointed a finger at the media's false balance:

    We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.

    Our advice to the press: Don't seek professional safety through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends?

The article became quite an internet sensation–with something like 200,000 recommendations on Facebook. But as Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent (5/14/12) points out, one class of people seem uniquely uninterested in the argument: Sunday talkshow bookers.

    It turns out neither man has been invited on to the Sunday shows even once to discuss this thesis. As Bob Somerby and Kevin Drum note, these are among the most quoted people in Washington–yet suddenly this latest topic is too hot for the talkers, or not deemed relevant at all.

Ornstein tells Sargent, "Not a single one of the Sunday shows has indicated an interest, and I do find it curious."

Out of fear of being called out for bias, political reporters and news organizations constantly fail at their job to inform readers/viewers about the current state of american politics. The fact that respected inside the beltway people are being shunned for saying this just shows how deep this practice goes through our political media.

Wanker of the Decade

To the surprise of no one, it was Tom Friedman. Go over there are read the whole thing.

Friedman possesses all of the qualities that make a pundit truly wankerific. He fetishizes a false "centrism" which is basically whatever Tom Friedman likes, imagining the Friedman agenda is both incredibly popular in the country and lacking any support from our current politicians, when in fact the opposite is usually true. Washington worships at the altar of the agenda of false centrism, and people often hate it. Problems abroad, even ones which really have nothing to do with us, should be solved by war, and problems at home should be solved by increasing the suffering of poor and middle class people. Even though one political party is pretty much implementing, or trying to implement, 99.999999% of the Friedman agenda, what we really need is a third party catering precisely to this silent majority of Friedmanites.

Truly great wankers possess a kind of glib narcissism, the belief that everything is about them while simultaneously disavowing any responsibility for anything. The important thing about an issue is whether it proves Tom Friedman fucking right, but if it doesn't we can just move on to the next big thing that will prove Tom Friedman fucking right. If you advocate for wars that go a bit bad, well, it's not your fault. If only Tom Friedman had been in charge everything would have been great.

And if you're not reading atrios on a regular basis, you should. He's one of the best combination of really smart and really funny there is today. And if nothing else, he's the one who brought this clip to the world's attention:

Check him out.

The He Said/She Said School of Reporting

I listen to NPR when I wake up in the morning, and tend to get frustrated endlessly by what Dean Baker describes here:

Is today Tuesday? Some people say it is and others say it isn't. It's just so hard to decide.

That is pretty much what NPR told us about President Obama's record in turning around the economy this morning. It cited Alan Blinder, an economist who has served in past Democratic administrations, saying that President Obama's policies helped the economy. It then cited Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served in the Bush administration and was the chief economic advisor to John McCain saying that his policies harmed the economy.

It would have been helpful to give us the assessment of neutral observers such as theCongressional Budget Office. It also would have been helpful to try to make evaluate the claims of the Romney campaign that the stimulus harmed the economy.

NPR reported that the Romney campaign said:

"The president made the recession worse, the statement says, 'by pursuing a series of disastrous, partisan policies that created uncertainty, discouraged investment and stifled job creation.'"

There is a simple claim that can be evaluated here. The Romney campaign says that investment would have been higher had it not been for Obama's actions. This can be evaluated by comparing the path of investment with what might have been predicted absent the bad policies from President Obama.

Investment in equipment and software is currently close to 7.5 percent of GDP. It was 7.9 percent before the downturn in 2007. Given the huge amounts of excess capacity in large sectors of the economy, it is difficult to envision a scenario in which investment would have been much higher than it is today. If the Romney campaign is to be taken seriously in this claim then it should have to present some evidence that would establish its counter-factual as being credible. On it's face, it is not.

I actually heard this live this morning and was driven a bit nuts for the same reason. Also, if you ever listen to Marketplace or a bunch of their other shows they take the same approach. It's not helpful, and no one learns anything from the stories. But NPR doesn't see themselves as "taking sides" between truth and non-truth and being accused of liberal bias, so it all works out ok!

Assholes

This kind of says it all:

What a jackass.

Fat Sexist Asshole Makes Fat Sexist Comment

I don't know exactly why this is that much more offensive than every other horrible thing Rush Limbaugh has ever said, but this is getting a lot of attention, so I'm not complaining:

A growing list of groups and individuals have denounced Rush Limbaugh in the wake of his vicious attack on Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University Law School student who testified before Congress recently about the problems caused when women lack access to contraception. The popular right-wing radio host has unleashed a torrent of misogynistic comments directed at Fluke over the past few days, calling her a "slut" and a "prostitute," and demanding: "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I'll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch." 

If you want to help the campaign to make sponsors aware of his language, check out what media matters comes up with. They recently hired one of the main guys who used that tactic to get Glenn Beck off the air.

Morons

Actually posted at Politico:

WH flies labor flag in Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE -- It's very clear what side President Obama is on here in Wisconsin.

Behind the stage where he will speak today are two flags: an American one, as usual, and right alongside it -- and a flag for the local union, Wisconsin 1848.

The president has been mum in recent months on the battle raging in the Badger State between unions and Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who is facing a recall election largely pushed by labor after he pushed through laws effectively taking away collective bargaining rights in the state.

Here at Master Lock, Obama is speaking about domestic manufaturing and highlighting what he calls "in-sourcing," bringing jobs back from overseas. The padlock manufacturer brought roughly 100 jobs back from China to this factory --union jobs, the White House has noted.

Walker had been expected to join the president but canceled this morning because his office said he has the flu.

OMG Obama's in the tank for big labor!?!!!?

Or... it's the Wisconsin state flag. Idiots.