What I expect is that you will purge your networks of the far right wing commentators that have dominated the 24-hour news cycle, just as you did with the Republican "mandate" (5 to 4 by the U. S. Supreme Court) in 2000. Please just replace Glen Beck or Joe Scarbrough just as you replaced Phil Donahue and Bill Maher. I will be watching.
My bet? Onslaught of negative coverage. The media loved to cover Whitewater and the Lewinsky scandal. All the baloney about supporting the President was just crap. They only want you to support their president. When it is a Democrat in the office, respect doesn't seen to be an issue (like the control of Congress under Bush) or even viewed as really patriotic.
It is only a problem if it is a Democrat because they are somehow different from those "patriotic" Republicans. John Kerry was a war hero, but the GOP handed out Purple Heart bandaides at their convention while our troops were engaged on two battlefronts. Run John McCain and war hero is something that everyone must respect. Corporate America doesn't not want to pay it's fair share of taxes and it wants unfettered access to the largest consumer economy in the world. That will not change under an Obama or a Democrat administration. Chris Matthews couldn't get enough leaked testimony from Ken Starr. Let the howling and the wailing and the misleading be gone. Will truth ever return to journalism?
"Center-Right Nation" Watch - Mark Penn Edition
By David Sirota
November 3rd, 2008 - 3:31pm ET
Mark Penn joins fellow corporate pollster Doug Schoen, Peggy Noonan, Charles Krauthammer and Jon Meacham as the latest member of the Punditburo to insist that no matter what happens on election day, America is a center-right nation, and therefore a President Obama must not govern as a progressive. Here's the excerpt from Penn's screed in the Financial Times:
The history of 1992 contains a clear warning that a centre-left coalition can fall apart quickly if the policies are seen as too far left. In 1993, Mr Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy, adopted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the military, proposed and lost universal healthcare and adopted gun safety measures, banning assault rifles. (emphasis added)
Penn is following Schoen's lead in making the Democratic side of this Establishment argument - using the manufactured storyline of Bill Clinton's supposed actions to claim that if a President Obama governs as a progressive, he will end up like Clinton in 1994. Not only is the storyline wholly fake, it implies that nothing has changed in America since 1994. That is, it implies with a straight face that the Bush years and the backlash to those years did nothing to move the country in a progressive direction.
Give all of these hacks credit. Out of their hysterical fear of waking up to irrelevancy on November 5th has come a disciplined strategy of lying - lying about where polling data shows the country is on issues, and lying about what an election of Obama actually means in such an ideologically polarized context.
Look, I'm all for Obama governing as a "centrist" - as long as he recognizes that the actual "center" of American public opinion is far different from the "center" as defined by corporate-hired pollsters like Penn, and the rest of the Establishment Punditburo.
And that's what's really going on here - the Establishment is attempting to anchor the definition of the "center" right where it is right now. And as dishonest as the arguments from shills like Penn are, those arguments are going to only get louder after election day. If they are allowed to distort whatever election mandate happens on November 4th, they will kill progressive change before it is ever born.
Dean: Scarborough 'parroting' GOP talking points
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday November 4, 2008
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough welcomed Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to his program on Tuesday morning by acknowledging the likelihood of a "historic victory" for Barack Obama.
However, Scarborough, a former Republican Congressman, quickly turned from congratulating Dean to suggesting that the Democratic leadership in Congress would be likely to "overreach" once they enjoyed larger majorities and a president of their own party.
Dean told Scarborough in response that he sounded like he was "parroting" Republican attack ads.
"What do you tell Americans today," Scarborough began, "as they're getting out and voting, that may be concerned that if they give the Democrats the Senate and the House and the White House, that they may be no more responsible than the Republicans when they were given all branches of power or the Clinton administration in '93 and '94?"
"The Clinton administration did some good things," Dean objected. "I'd say give us a chance."
"The Democrats overreached in '93 and '94," insisted Scarborough, "which put Republicans in the House and Senate for the better part of a decade. Tell me Democrats won't make that same mistake again."
"Joe, this election is not about the past," Dean replied. "This is about the future, and Barack is going to run a great administration. We're going to work back toward restoring fiscal responsibility to this country. ... Give us a chance to change America."
"You were considered a moderate governor in Vermont," Scarborough told Dean. "Do you think that Barack Obama is going to be able to deal with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and others in Congress and explain to them that sometimes 'perfect' is the enemy of 'good'?"
"You sound like you're parroting the party line in the last couple of weeks of attack ads," Dean responded. He went on to describe both Pelosi and Reid as "thoughtful" and concluded, "We will move the country forward. We will deliver on our promises."
This video is from MSNBC's Morning Joe, broadcast November 4, 2008.
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