The Beltway Media: Blood Enemy of the Democrats

If you have been one of the few regular readers of this little blog, you know that I consider America to be a nation in crisis. This crisis has been brought on in no small measure by media figures who are determined to smear and destroy every Democratic candidate for president. (BTW, the phrase "Liberal Media" is an absurd lie. There is no such thing. It's a conservative fairy tale circulated to intimidate media people.) Their favorite method for doing this is to widely parrot and faithfully circulate every radical right-wing slander and talking point directed at Democrats. In EVERY election, the Democratic candidate is "elitist", "out of touch", "not a Regular American", "not one of us", and other similar vomit. Meanwhile, Republican silver spoon aristocrats like George W. "Aw, shucks, y'all, I'm just like you are" Bush are given the red carpet treatment, fawned over, protected, and portrayed as Real People. Never mind Bush's phony accent, his phony ranch, his multi-million dollar personal wealth, or his amazing record of failing his way upward through the use of family clout and corrupt influence. Why, he's WAY better than any of those fancy-pants librul Democrat Party types, ain't he? Now, Barack Obama is being subjected to the same filthy, despicable tactics. As always, the inimitable Glenn Greenwald is on the case:

The reason the establishment press fixates on these adolescent themes has nothing to do with what "Americans" want. It has everything to do with the fact that it's what these journalists always do; it's what they're programmed to do; and, at this point, it's all the empty and slothful media stars know how to do.

Critically, they're not just assaulting Obama (and, before him, Clinton and Edwards) with randomly selected petty trash. It's purposeful and familiar: all of these Drudgian paper cuts are intended to expose Obama as an exotic, bizarre, effete, vaguely American-hating elitist who is out of touch with Regular Americans and plagued by a personality so unlikable that you can't possibly vote for him even if you agree with him on all of the issues -- just as was true for virtually every national Democratic leader before him. All of this happens while the media reverence for John McCain and his character, "strength," likability and integrity grow -- far beyond even the affection they acknowledge they have long harbored for the amiable war hero, George W. Bush, and which is obligatorily directed at the canonized Ronald Reagan.

As I wrote in Great American Hypocrites:

As always, Drudge rules their world and they become his echo chamber. If he selects a petty, personality-smearing story to trumpet, and the media (as they always do) dutifully follows, then that alone constitutes "proof" of the story’s importance, evidence that "plenty of people" care about it, which in turn justifies the media's continuous chatter about it.

Most certainly, the press will pretend to be above it all ("this is not something that we, the sophisticated political journalists, care about, of course"). But they yammer about Drudge-promoted gossip endlessly, and then insist that their own chattering is proof that it is an important story that people care about. And because they conclude that "people" (i.e., them) are concerned with the story, they keep chirping about it, which in turn fuels their belief that the story is important. It is an endless loop of self-referential narcissism—whatever they endlessly sputter is what "the people" care about, and therefore they must keep harping on it, because their chatter is proof of its importance.

They no longer even need Drudge to lead the way. They find that path on their own now. Journalists like [David] Brooks and his friends fixate on these issues because they're what interests them, because it takes no work and no thought to chatter about it, because they have been fed their trashy storylines by right-wing operatives ever since they formed their partnership with them during the Clinton sex witch hunts, and because the people who become media stars become media stars because this is what they do best (Digby has more on that here). Blaming the American public for the behavior of these journalists only compounds the deceit and scurrilousness of it, particularly given that nobody is more removed and insulted from what "Regular Americans" think than the coddled, pack-mentality media stars who fantasize that they are their spokesmen.

Now, couple this with the fact that the vast majority of Beltway Media people are fervently supporting McCain. They purvey pro-McCain BS 24/7, throw him namby-pamby softball questions, and ignore his $100 MILLION+ personal fortune while portraying him as just a "regular guy". They also ignore McCain's neglect of veterans issues, his bitterly right wing stance on reproductive issues, his corruption, his vile temper, and his questionable mental stability. But Barack Obama is subjected to a constant wave of petty, lying, idiotic bullshit because he is the likely Democratic nominee. We have to call these bastards on it NOW before they succeed in bamboozling enough Americans to get another right-wing radical Republican in the White House.

Remember, Democrats and progressives: the Beltway Media figures ARE YOUR ENEMIES. Treat them in the way they deserve to be treated. They need to be DEFEATED, not compromised with.

Period.