What happens is that on day one, they were absolutely apoplectic with glee. They had a week long emotional bender when they were floating 6 inches off the floor of the newsroom. The few conservatives at a station would needle them and get a full throated HAHAHAH WE WON in the face. Now as stories like this come out and you needle the liberals they look at the floor and change the subject. If you push the issue they get nasty. Assignemnt editors and news directors threaten you if you don’t stop pushing reality in their faces.
Pointing out that this will, not could, WILL be them evntually makes them walk away angry. Seems Bush wasn’t the devil after all...
The question remains of course: when is the worm going to turn?
I keep hearkening back to a book I read as a youngster, Carter Press Secretary Jody Powell’s 1984 “The Other Side of the Story” wherein he recounts the treatment ol’ Jimmah got from the “liberal” media.
Powell was remarkably candid about his own mistakes as well as savaging his media colleagues for their egotistical shallowness and pique. Basically, he admits that Carter treated the MSM with coldness and disdain and it wasn’t long before the MSM (which had always considered him a hayseed from the first, but had begun his administration with high hopes) began giving it back to him in spades.
Quite unlike Halberstam’s portrayal of FDR’s masterful manipulation of reporters (compliments, ego-stroking, access), Carter kept them at arm’s length and that was all (combined with his incompetent flailing and national humiliations) that it took, soon they were pounding on him and manufacturing scandals and pratfalls with a vengeance.
They’ve openly played kingmaker with Obama, but from what little I can tell from where I’m seated, the Big “O” is treating them like servants. All his minions’ networking and Monday morning conference-calling exist soley to give them marching orders. Meanwhile, they can’t possibly be unaware of the terrifying possibilities inherent in such things as the upcoming Cyber Security Act and what this trashing of the Constitution will mean to them. Strong-arming an NPR reporter is pretty much adding insult to injury as far as I can see. As it does not seem that Obama has any intentions of putting them all on the payroll and saving their jobs it looks to me that sheer self-preservation, never mind outraged ego must eventually cause them to turn on him.
Are there any insider’s blogs and websites you know of where these types do their commiserating?
Of course, I’ve been maintaining that liberals are starting to realize that they’re not recession-proof either and that joy in a leftist president is not going to pay their rent any more than the less spiritually elect among us. How long Obama can get away with focusing public anger on the evil bankers and capitalist Monopoly Men is debatable.