Pundit atrocities

Fomalhaut b: things are different there

The post-election weeks have been hard on favorite pundit scripts. All our Great Pundits were assuring us just before and after Election Day that the economic crisis would force Obama to scale back all this hippie nonsense about fixing health care and all and govern like a Republican. Plus he was going to have to appoint all kinds of Republicans to his Cabinet because the clear victory for Obama and the Democrats meant that the public wanted the Democrats to act like Republicans.

Severe detachment from reality is no impediment to pundit scripts that catch on. Where they come from is anybody's guess. I'm still thinking, messages from Fomalhaut b.

When none of that panned out - except for Obama asking Bob Gates to stay on as Defense Secretary - they picked up another weird script. There was a bridge element, which was the notion that Obama's sensible Cabinet picks meant that Obama was pretty much accepting Bush's policies on most everything, even though he's clearly not. But the real point was that "the left" and the dirty blogging hippies were upset with Obama's Cabinet picks. Except that they weren't, for the most part.

Now that one seems to be wearing off:

Charles Krauthammer in The Real Obama Washington Post 12/12/08 now tells us that Obama doesn't much care about the financial crisis or foreign policy. And that the partial nationalization of the banks that has been done already is "the kind of stuff that happens in Peronist Argentina with a gun on the table", which might have made sense in, oh, 1973. But Obama is going to "a new green economy, universal health care, a labor resurgence, government as benevolent private-sector 'partner'," the Great Pundit tells us. He even realizes that the True Pundit Wisdom on how the financial crisis would stop him from doing anything was hokum!

(All the columns cited here are from the 12/12/08 Washington Post.)

Most importantly, the great Krauthammer, whose wise advice on the Iraq War was about as destructive and misguided bad judgment as one could possibly imagine, gives us a clue as to where the pundits get their ideas, when he notes that Obama has "at his disposal, the greatest pot of money in galactic history. (I include here the extrasolar planets.)" Pod people from Fomalhaut b, I'm telling you.

"Liberal" Great Pundit E.J. Dionne Jr. in Worried on the Left? is starting to notice that reality is failing to match the script about "the left" being so upset with Obama, though neither he nor Krauthammer are ready to give it up yet. But Dionne apparently got out and did a bit of actual reporting, and the dissonance between reality and the approved script is seeping in:

As it happens, Obama's team is by most reasonable tests somewhere to the left of the one [John] Kennedy assembled. That's because reality has moved left, particularly over the past six months. When a Republican administration presides over -- let's call it what it is -- the partial nationalization of the finance industry, and when even conservatives are calling for large-scale deficit spending, the very definition of the political center needs to be revised. [Duh!]

But there's another problem with the "disillusioned left" story line. If those looking for a split consulted with the most progressive members of Congress, they would discover a certain serenity about the direction the next president will take.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who proudly describes himself as a democratic socialist, has as much of a claim as anyone to speak for the left. He says those who see Obama as drifting right are overlooking the importance of the president-elect's past as a community organizer and also his "sense of history." ...

Sen. Sherrod Brown, another hero to economic populists, argues that even Obama's appointees among the middle-of-the-road veterans of Bill Clinton's administration "have all moved from where they were" because economic circumstances have changed so much since the early 1990s.

"I think they pay much more attention to middle-class needs right now -- the shrinking middle class and the gap between rich and poor," the Ohio Democrat said. "I think they understand their mistakes on deregulation." Like Sanders, Brown stresses Obama's past as an organizer. "I think his sentiments are progressive," Brown says. [my emphasis]

Dionne better be careful with mixing actual reporting in with the approved pundit scripts. He could find himself throwing off the favorite narratives!

Eugene Robinson, another "liberal" Big Pundit, in A Playbook to Change is already bored with all this policy crap that's being talked about so much in the midst of the failure of the world's private financial system. He's ready to move on to fun stuff, liking making up a pseudo-scandal about "Obama and Blagojevich". The Great Pundit writes, "The scandal involves Obama in only the most tangential way, as far as anyone knows, and actually seems to cast him in a favorable light. But the longer he leaves obvious questions unanswered ... "

Remember, this is a liberal pundit. From any evidence in the public record, Obama is involved in Blagojevich's alleged crimes in the same "tangential" way he was involved with the Weather Underground, i.e., not at all. But, returning to the Clinton Rules the Establishment press loved so well, there are "questions" to answer, presumably questions like, "How can you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no possible way you could ever have been involved in anything shady that Blogojevich ever did?" Questions which are hard to answer because they are, uh, unanswerable.

You know, it's one thing for a reporter to be skeptical. That's what the few real journalists in our national press corps are supposed to be doing. But it's one thing for Robinson to ask in his reporter's head, doesn't it seem likely that Obama had some contact with Blagojevich about the Senate appointment? And then go out and pursue actual facts by actually reporting on it. But Robinson just shares his own rambling speculations in print, with bumpkiss in the way of actual reporting or analysis, and concludes that Obama needs to come clean and "all the facts out now, rather than later."

The press applying Clinton Rules eventually gave us Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, the torture policy, the Iraq War, the Katrina fiasco, the US Attorney scandals, Abu Gonzales, corruption at a level that boggles the mind: do we really want to have that again in four years?

To state it again: real journalists should be asking themselves those questions and then do some reporting and research to answer them. And then tell us when they have something to report. Not to make it a scandal that Obama hasn't answered unanswerable questions.

Kathleen Parker, who managed to pass herself off as a "moderate" Republican type because she noticed the unavoidable fact that Sarah Palin isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, in The Rules, Washington Edition is also tired of dealing with all this boring economic policy and status-of-force agreement stuff. She asks us to contemplate the burning question of whether a flat cardboard cut-out of Hillary Clinton has breasts. For our leading pundits, commenting on either Bill or Hillary produces generally produces either inanity or insanity. Parker, of course, works in the obligatory Monica allusion.

But Parker also shares a revealing bit of perspective on how our Big Pundits see their jobs: "All of the above would be nonsense except that almost nothing any longer is. Nonsense is the new standard for controversy; and even party shenanigans qualify." (my emphasis)

But after devoting her whole column to what she herself describes as "nonsense", she says any feminists complaining about the same thing should shut the hell up and complain about Iran instead.

Let's face it: the beings from Fomalhaut b don't think like earthly humanoids.

Jackson Diehl in The Door That Bush Kept Open Washington Post 12/12/08 says that Obama should follow the Cheney-Bush administration's admirable record on promoting democracy and human rights. No, on Fomalhaut b, they apparently haven't gotten clear about this whole torture policy, Bush Gulag, massive illegal surveillance, and crassly partisan malfeasant prosecutions business.

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson in an op-ed called, In Congo, a Test for 'Obama Country', thinks it's a cool idea for Obama to invade and occupy the Republic of the Congo. Since we don't have any other wars and occupations much distracting us at the moment.

The Post's opinion writers are in a notably self-revelatory state today. Steven Stein in Thoughts on This Blagojevich Business actually puts down in (digital) print, "I know I’m supposed to be outraged about how Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (allegedly) hung a 'For Sale' sign on his integrity. But let’s admit it: The Obama administration has been so controversy free, it’s nice to have a little political drama."

Selling Senate seats? That doesn't bother Stein! As long as he gets his entertainment and doesn't have to worry about all this dull policy hoo-ha, he's happy.

Tags: establishment press, mainstream media, mainstream press