Sunday, March 06, 2016

Bernie and the Beltway press

Some of the press treatment of the primaries is ideological. But I think a lot of it is also industry-specific groupthink, in which the Beltway press settle on a script and stick to it even long after reality beats them up side the head.

On Saturday evening, after Tailgunner Ted Cruz won two of three states on the Republican side and Bernie two on the Democratic side, the Washington Post ran this headline online:


In 2008, the dominant script was that the interesting and eloquent Obama would beat dull Hillary in the primaries and Clinton should just drop out sooner than later. But the honorable honest Bold Maverick McCain was the logical choice because of his mavericky maverickness.

The script this year circa December was Hillary was the obvious inevitable choice and the Democratic side and either Jeb! BUSH or Young Marco would easily be the Republcian nominee. Now they are freaking over Trump because he gives a desublimated version of what the Very Serious Republicans' position has been for, well, decades. And Bernie is obviously irrelevant because, well, that's what everybody in the Beltway says.

Chuck Todd did a teaser on Meet the Press Sunday saying that after the break, he was going to explain how Bernie one two of three on Saturday but that meant he was in worse shaped than before. But Nancy Reagan obituaries preempted Chuck's no doubt marvelous explanation.

Sunday he won in Maine, so I guess we should expect headlines like, "Sanders wins three of four states on weekend: How much longer before he drops out?"

The Young Turks have been harping on the media's Bernie script. SUPER Biased Super Saturday Headlines From Mainstream Media 03/05/2016:



Media Desperately Downplays Bernie Sanders Surge 03/06/2016:



Media Ignores Bernie Sanders Maine Blowout 03/06/2016:


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