When the Idiocy Breaks Our Way

by dj moonbat

I remember a few weeks ago, one of our 'visitors' expressed some surprise to learn that TLC readers were not uniformly supportive of Maureen Dowd. It seems the general idea is that the political slant of a piece is all a reader might care about; the actual ideas in play are at best secondary.

It's almost true: in the inhospitable wasteland of today's so-called liberal media, it can be tempting to find solace in articles that take our side. When hacks like Fineman, who have built careers out of making Bush policies seem blandly reasonable, start making them seem blandly unreasonable, it starts to seem like a big victory. When the aforementioned Dowd, who spent a couple of years cattily tearing down Clinton, starts spending her time cattily tearing down Bush, it almost seems like justice.

Our side can never win this game, though, so it's important that we teach ourselves not to play. The themes that we cherish are less useful for playing games of soundbite 'gotcha.' We occasionally ask questions, so we're never going to out-resolute anybody. As lame as it unquestionably is, we have to consign ourselves to being the party of those who think that accusations are more appropriate when tethered to reality.

Jonathan Alter--as big a pimp for the Conventional Wisdom™ as you'll find--is eagerly looking for ways to show us that the CW™ is getting behind Kerry. This shift would make me feel a lot better if somehow it resulted in a discussion of the Catastrophic Success that is the Bush administration. But no, it's about the Red Sox. The story contains a grand total of one--count 'em, one--sentence that even mentions policy:

If the Houston Astros win the National League pennant, setting up a Texas-Massachusetts World Series, everyone in the political world will focus on the baseball metaphor, if for no other reason than to keep them from talking about “profound diversions” and “global tests.”

This, ladies and gentleman, is the sorry state of our modern press.

We're going to win this electoral battle, I'm pretty sure, but it won't be because we've won the media war. If Bush hadn't f*&%ed up so colossally, we would be looking at a much less sympathetic commentariat bias to this day. In the short term, it's nice to see that the press thinks it's safe to start doing fluff pieces for our side; in the long term, though, I think it's critical that we understand that fluff pieces per se are harmful to the Left. Without facts, without objectivity, we will remain forever subject to the caprices of the Kool Kids.

So next time your favorite media whore runs a piece on how President John Kerry's most recent sandwich purchase shows us how the times are-a-changing, write them and let them know that we'd like some facts with that cheesesteak.