Why Can't Corporate Media Admit the Real Reason Republicans Lost?

[marmar]

via AlterNet's PEEK:



Why Can't Corporate Media Admit the Real Reason Republicans Lost?

Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog at 10:31 AM on November 19, 2008.

Is it really impossible for insider journos to acknowledge that Republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 because voters hated what they were doing?



So I'm over at Chris Cillizza's Washington Post blog, and I'm reading the post that was just quoted in Firedoglake -- you know, the one that's sending every lefty's blood pressure into the danger zone -- but I find myself distracted not by the paragraph quoted at FDL, but by what Cillizza says two paragraphs later (emphasis mine):

...Asked what it would mean if Lieberman kept his chairmanship, one Senate Democratic aide said bluntly: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question."

That's one way to look at it. The other is that the left would be up in arms and far less willing to go along and get along with President-elect Barack Obama's agenda -- particularly if it doesn't contain the appropriate progressive tilt.

These are the problems of power, the same problems that Republican experienced following the 2000 election. The GOP's inability to make peace between its warring ideological factions led to its decline in 2006 and fall in 2008. Can Democrats avoid the same fate?

Is that really why insider journos think the GOP had trouble at the polls in the last two elections? Because the GOP and the right weren't in lockstep enough?

Was I smoking crack for the last eight years? Did I imagine the near-total absence of GOP/right-wing dissent on the war, torture, surveillance, the tax cuts, deregulation, social programs, and dozens of other issues? Yeah, there was friction on immigration, and briefly on Harriet Miers and Dubai Ports World, but that was pretty much the extent of it. (And even then there was a restored sense of unanimity as soon as the purists blocked each Bushie deviation from Correct Thinking.)

The unanimity was remarkable until, of course, the second electoral thumpin', in 2008, when suddenly Republicans and rightists started fighting among themselves. (After the first thumpin' they merely blamed themselves, near-unanimously, for not living up to their near-unanimously shared principles of endless war and utter contempt for have-nots. Some fighting, to be sure, started before the '08 election, when it appeared that all the top-tier party candidates for president were occasional deviants from the True Path, but ranks closed as soon as it was universally acknowledged that the alternative to the party's choice was rule by Satan, and ranks remained closed until a loss became inevitable.)

Is it really impossible for people like Cillizza to acknowledge that Republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 because voters hated what they were doing?


http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/107771/why_can%27t_corporate_media_admit_the_real_reason_republicans_lost

[opihimoimoi]

1. Everyone wants to play it safe and keep their jobs save for a few brave souls

The evidence point toward the obvious...the econ has tanked under Bush...started 4 years ago and has yet to show signs of a recovery...in fact...DOW is at the 7000 bracket....down from 14000 only a year ago..

People are not dumb when it comes to money and food...Bush economics has failed...the People are Hungry for Change...the GOP Bull Shit is not selling these days....Bush has made America Jaded Numb with BullCrap...thats why McCain got his ass kicked in...Bull Shit is not selling...

The Media is owned by the GOP....they will NOT go into the Truth unless unavoidable...

The Voters have come to despise the GOP....thanks to their Lies....

[BeFree]

7. Right

Imagine if the GOP had remained totally united. Bush would have been the centerpiece of the convention, endless war would have been their mantra, and the economy complainers would have been labeled whiners (they actually were!).

So had the GOP done all that, and more, McCain would have lost by 30 million votes, we'd have another 3 or 4 senators and the house 4 to 1 Dems.

Folks, we should have worked to keep the GOP united. Maybe next time?

[Captain Hilts]

2. Exactly, policies were bad and they ran the machine of govt. INCOMPETENTLY. nt

[Mari333]

3. Many of the people in the MSM are clueless

I have a friend who was interviewed by a talking head on MSNBC back during the war. She was a mother of a kid who was sent to Iraq at the beginning of the war, and she was opposed to the occupation and actually went to see her son in Iraq which resulted in the MSM wanting to hold an interview with her on TV.
She called me later and told me "My god, those people are CLUELESS! " She went on to say that before the interview, she spoke with some of the staff at MSNBC, including the blonde reporter who did the interview, and none of them had heard of PNAC, none of them had any idea what was going on outside the bubble of their own studio. They were priveledged people living in a world of their own. And they seemed shocked when she told them about the PNAC agenda.
I honestly dont think a lot of them are very bright, according to what my friend told me. Or interested in anything more then ratings.

[old mark]

4. Ratings is what they do. They used to be called "reporters",

but they are now merely people who are able to read a teleprompter - without necessarily undrstanding what they read - tha look appealing while they do it. If they have some personality, that's a plus, but not too much - they don't want to take a chance on offending anyone.

CNN's morning show is a prime example of this - airhead central.

mark

[Mari333]

5. Good description and

I dont have a TV anymore. I watched a CNN news show one day at my oldest son's home and I was shocked. Everyone looked like expensive call girls to me. It was the only thing that came to mind, call girls and expensive hookers. Plus, they made me think of KIDS...dolled up teenagers, vapid, even the men. Way too much makeup, bouffant hairdos, tight shirts, and cleavage. It was awful, and having been out of the TV watching loop for so long, I was just blown away by the cheap and tawdry pubescent people spouting off 'news'. It was even more surreal when they started having 'opinions' about what they were broadcasting.
What a sorry state of affairs.

[old mark]

6. The sad thing is that many younger people don't

know there was real news programming at one time.

Would be great to see a real news program just for comparison.

mark