On NPR today, Morning Edition had a segment with Cokie Roberts doing political analysis.
The Issue of Iraq Policy Change Takes Hold in Washington was the header put on the piece, but it was a bit broader than that.
Listening to Roberts, I realized why things have seemed stranger than usual since the election. (By stranger, I mean beyond what you'd expect just from the way it turned out.) It's because the MSM talking heads still haven't caught their balance since the election turned their world upside down. All those talking points and spin they've been sucking down from Fox News, Rush, the White House, etc. for years have broken down.
They no longer have their old, proven scripts to fall back on to interpret events.
Listening to Roberts, I began to realize just how adrift they are; two words did it for me. (more)
What were those words? Roberts was talking about what the new Democratic Congress was going to have to do to keep all of the independent voters who put them over the top happy.
They're probably best off by pushing their domestic agenda, which was wildly popular.
WHEN was the last time anyone in the MSM described anything to do with the Democrats as
wildly popular?
wildly popular
wildly popular
wildly popular
wildly popular
wildly popular
WILDLY POPULAR!
It just boggles the mind, it does. Can you imagine anyone in the MSM using those words a week ago in connection with anything Democratic? Well maybe something along the lines of Howard Dean is wildly popular with the fringe elements of the Democrats and the blogger community.
Sentence by sentence what Roberts had to say made sense - but the totality was just a little less coherent. You can listen to it here and decide for yourself.
According to Roberts, the election was all about a referendum on Bush and the war. It wasn't that people were voting for Democrats as much as they were just voting against Bush. Then she makes the wildly popular statement. Can you say cognitive dissonance?
She almost completely discounted Rove's comments that corruption was an issue for voters. Think about that for a moment.
After years of hearing how character counts, how values voters are critical in deciding electoral contests, hearing it over and over again from the analysts and the talking heads, one of them now just dismisses the corruption issue completely. WTF?!?!??
Oh, wait a minute - Republicans are the party of values, so there's no way they could have ethical problems with the voters, right? Democrats are another story, but not Republicans. Please, no........
What is happening here is a breakdown of the MSM "Common Wisdom" following its high speed collision with reality on November 7. All of the basic assumptions the MSM have internalized from the Clinton years on are in danger of collapsing - and it's leaving them floundering.
Democrats actually have something that's popular with voters? Aren't they supposed to be extremist and out of touch with America? Betraying moral values has consequences for Republicans? How can that be? It's all the war's fault - none of the other domestic disasters matter, right? Oh, and those tax cuts better remain sacred.
It's actually scary from them. After all, Fox News has been the one to imitate, and they've all been moving in that direction. What if the country is actually starting to move in that New Direction the Democrats have been talking about?
Look for the MSM to try to play up every old cliche about the Democrats while they try to get their bearings in this new political landscape. (Roberts concluded her piece by trying to suggest the Democrats are going to collapse in Civil War over who gets to be Nancy Pelosi's Number Two leader in the House.)
So - what have you been hearing or seeing? Does it look to you like the MSM is desperately trying to make it all go back the way it was? Local and national examples welcome.
UPDATE: TPM picks up CNN beating the "Divided Democrats" drum.
Here.