“slightly scary passions unleashed by the Tea Party crazies...”
“the Tea Partiers as inchoate and maddeningly inconsistent?denouncing big bad government while clinging to their Medicare and Social Security benefits.”
Howard Kurtz proving he has no clue...
On the merits, journalists are right that Obama’s accomplishments have been minimized. Health care reform, however it pans out, was a huge achievement; the overall package remains unpopular, the individual parts (such as not excluding kids for preexisting conditions) not so much. Tightening financial regulation was a heavy lift against the forces of Wall Street. Even the much-derided stimulus law saved plenty of jobs.
And that is the Beltway liberal view of things. All of those were liberal special-interest fiascos, and folks on Main Street see right through the MSM jibberish that Kurtz writes here.
All that has been overshadowed because many voters believe the president bobbled the economy while setting his sights on social engineering. But here, too, the short attention span of today’s journalism played a role. The health care and banking battles were covered ad nauseum, but once they passed, the press lost interest and moved on to mosque mess and the Koran-burning preacher and whatever other diversions were available.
And wrong again. If the MSM had done their jobs all along, and accurately reported on these stories, these fiascos might never have come to pass.
As for his comment about the media annoiting Obama, I can only say, duh!
“...while clinging to their Medicare and Social Security benefits”
Because, having paid into this fraud for 40 years...they now expect gov’mt to yield the return that was promised? Rather than give it away to a bunch of illegals? WTF???!!!
Okay, this is something that's been gnawing at me for a long time, and Kurtz is the first person I've seen float it, with this little throwaway "the media says it's unjust".
We all remember the oh-so-wonderful "power sharing" the last round of big winning Repubs agreed to, in yet another ridiculous and futile attempt to get Democrats and other assorted communists to like them. What scares to the bejeebers out of me is that, should November prove to be as big a "tsunami" as predicted, the mantra pounded away at will be "Oh, it's just sooooooo UNFAIR that there are so many Republicans in Congress --- it's tyranny of the majority --- it doesn't matter if more people voted for them, think of all those "disenfranchised" Americans who aren't being represented. Oh woe is us, woe is us! The Republicans MUST be REQUIRED to let Democrats do X, Y or Z.... Democrats MUST be allowed to continue to have control of X, Y, or Z.... all in the name of FAIRNESS."
I truly believe the Democrats and their media allies will begin pushing this crap in an all-out attempt to bully the Repubs into holding back anything resembling a conservative (read: not communist) agenda. I swear, the new folks coming in have GOT to be ready to slash and burn.
This is a year in which facts—the preferred currency of the reality-based media—often don’t seem to matter. Journalists report that Sharron Angle had favored privatizing Social Security, spoke of people considering “Second Amendment remedies” and counseled rape victims to turn “a lemon situation into lemonade” by giving birth—and she’s still competitive with Harry Reid. Media outlets report that Christine O’Donnell, the onetime witchcraft dabbler, opposes masturbation and considers evolution “a myth,” and she laughs it off (while trailing in the race). New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino calls gay pride parades “disgusting,” hurls baseless charges about Andrew Cuomo’s sex life (after fathering a child out of wedlock himself) and tells a New York Post columnist “I’ll take you out”—and still hasn’t been laughed out of the race.
Notice this phrase. He refers to the New York media as "Reality-based media". His purpose is to establish a premise. What is he contrasting? Which media is not reality based? Talk radio? Fox News?
Second, notice how he establishes the premise that all the positions he mentions for these candidates should, if things were "normal", disqualify them from public office. Really? Many of them are Biblical truths held by western civilization for centuries, until the last 50 years. Also, notice that most of them are social issues. Issues the tea party has specifically not addressed since its concerns are primarily fiscal. (The Left have been trying to divide the tea party by introducing social issues into the debate.) Pro-life, sexual purity, God as creator, then he throws in a fiscal issue like privatizing social security just for cover. If you support them, according to Howie, you should not even be considered to serve in public office.
With two weeks to go, the gloves are off and old power centers are in complete panic. Death throes are never pretty.
Once again, us boobs just don’t get it.
I wonder if Obama has the time to explain it to us again.
The only answers they can come up with are “Blame Bush” or accusing finger-pointing “racist”—nothing else computes for them.
Their response is either lies or name-calling. They have nothing else. Facts are never on their side.