Bashing Democrats, A Pundit Addiction

[gatorboy]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/bashing-democrats-a-pund_b_21282.html

Promoting a new fishing memoir during a recent swing through his native South, former New York Times editor Howell Raines met with some readers who quizzed him about the state of politics. A Mobile Press-Register reporter in attendance wrote, "Raines, who throws in zingers in his memoir criticizing the Wall St. Journal editorial page, Fox News, and the current administration, wryly answers that the only thing that might make him return to journalism would be "a third term for George Bush."


He adds, as well, that "the Democratic party is in collapse.""


Assuming that second Raines quote is accurate, read it again and marvel. The former editor of the New York Times insists the Democratic Party is "in collapse." Forget the fact that a recent national poll showed a majority of Americans prefer Democrats over Republicans on every major issue, Raines, still feeding off the Beltway culture he inhabited for so long, can't resist mocking Democrats in public. The knee-jerk response is telling and utterly predictable since the D.C. press elite, and particularly pundits, appear to be physically unable for any sustained period of time to report bad news about Republicans without habitually noting things are just as bad, if not worse for Democrats. So spooked have journalists become to the charge of 'liberal bias,' that they've become afraid of the facts and the consequences of reporting them.


Raines is hardly alone. Throughout 2005 for instance, the narrative of the political press corps was this same pending demise of the Democratic Party; that Democrats had no answer regarding Iraq and that Democrats were being run circles around them super-savvy Republicans. Time magazine's Joe Klein has made a career out of bashing Democrats. From my new book "Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over For Bush":

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[Debau2005]

1. I don't have a problem if the Repukes

think we are in collapse. Let them look on us as weak. The poll numbers support us. We have always be mocked and ridiculed, I say let them.

I am a tree-hugging, vegetarian, liberal and have been ridiculed for as long as I can remember, and even by members of my family. I have always done what their Christian Jesus told them and I have turned the other cheek. I have found in most instances, that pisses them off even more....haha

[Warpy]

6. At least we atheists are feared, if that's any comfort at all

It's always struck me as odd how those of us who want nothing more than to be left alone are seen as persecuting a certain flavor of "Christian."

But yes, I'll always be ridiculed for being female, for having had too many birthdays, for being vegetarian, for belonging to the ACLU, and for my many other sins against the spongy and selfish suburban majority.

I just feel they're all betraying their innermost fears when they do it.

[Nimrod2005]

2. So true, good post, thanks. NT

[lpbk2713]

3. The late night talk show hosts would like to see Boosh do a third term.

He's a real gold mine of material.

[Bake]

5. Yeah, but he's not funny anymore.

It's just infuriating now.

Bake

[zbdent]

4. I just figured out why the righties bash Dems so constantly

There was a "made-for-TV" movie years ago, where a scientist had a theory about a 6 foot female runner being able to set new records.

Aside from other stuff, all her training was geared toward her achieving the gold medal.

This included preparing for interviews. The scientist had studied all the aspects of the interviews and practiced them with her, getting her to produce the correct responses to the questions.

To accomplish this, they used a vibrator . . . when she answered a question in the good way, she got a positive response.

(Funny thing was, the "insider" reporter who was privvy to all this also attended the "victory" interview, and asked a question she was not prepared for . . . and the look on her face went totally blank . . .)

I suspect that, once the talking head signs his or her soul away for the paltry sum that the conservative media pays him or her, this treatment begins . . .