So many of us, aghast at the utter collapse of American journalism to offer any sort of viable intellectual critique of reality, have spent the last fifteen or twenty years trying to figure out where everything went wrong.
Where our media broke down.
There's a basic concept that I think answers this question, and it actually starts with a question to be asked of the preening gatekeeper frauds like Chuck Todd, David Gregory, David Brooks, David Broder, Chris Matthews, etc.
And it is this:
If Barack Obama passes some of the most significant democratic party legislation since the New Deal, but the Democratic Party loses seats in 2010, then did the Democrats "fail"?
This is the key question because it cuts to the heart of the corrosion inside the machinery of the beltway. This "Entertainment Tonight" idea of cheering between "winners" and "losers" as a form of ongoing entertainment.
"What were the Box Office numbers for Tom Cruise's 'Knight and Day' and will he still be a movie star?" = "What was Barack Obama's demeanor after his last speech on the tarmac? He seems depressed!"
To these personality driven issue free pundit frauds on our teevees, democrats and republicans are like sports teams, or stock picks, that go up and down, and the only measure of success or failure is counting the seats won or lost.
As if seats won or lost affects the deficit, or wars or jobs or civil rights. As if a number like 55 or 57 or 49 puts food on the plate of hungry Americans.
This is journalism today: A Sports Fantasy League with bowties.
The beltway mentality at its most pathetic:
- Democrats and Republicans are teams
- If one wins, the other loses
- Elections determine who won or lost
What's missing from this formulation?
THE REAL F@#$KING WORLD.
The point of politics, the reason we all care, is not because of some fantasy league passion where we're tracking our favorite players and teams to see how they do over the course of their "season." While I'm sure clowns like Chuck Todd and David Gregory see political polls as no different than their fantasy league baseball on Yahoo Sports, those of us in the blogosphere realize something far more important:
Politics influences the world.
Politics makes a difference in people's lives.
So here's my question for the Bubble Boys of the D.C. Punditland:
If democrats are able to bring universal health insurance into play, reform Wall Street greed, let the Bush Tax Cuts expire, significantly reduce our soldiers in Iraq and end the practice of torture done by Americans overseas, and then they lose seats in Washington, did democrats "fail"?
In the mind of the sports score analogizing punditry class, the answer is clearly yes.
If democrats lose seats, they lost the "Championship Game."
Actual shifts in policy are no longer part of the equation.
This is the 24/7/365 election cycle. One where the pathetic CNN and increasingly Politico-esque Huffington Post spent this morning wondering about whether Jeb Bush will be our next president, two years out.
Hey, media folks: How about reporting on reality once in awhile?