An angry, relatively obscure leftist blogger goes on a rant about how political journalism seems to be little more than "theater criticism":
There are two big problems with this kind of reporting. The important problem is that it fails to inform the public about what matters. In 2004, very few people had any idea about the very real differences between the candidates on domestic policy. It remains to be seen whether 2008 is any better.
The other problem, which has become very apparent lately, is that this sort of coverage often fails even on its own terms, because the way things look to inside-the-Beltway pundits can be very different from the way they look to real people.
I would suggest to my foulmouthed (you have to read between the lines) liberal blog fever swamp confrere that there is a third, more subtle but probably more far-reaching problem with such reporting: it has become so desperately important for politicians to get rave reviews for their performances that it offers them a powerful incentive to play to these critics' silly biases and retain at least the illusion of power (which is in some ways not much different from actual power) at the expense of devising sound policy that might perhaps be in the public interest.
Bush & the GOP may have lost the country, but not the punditry. And while it may be the case that you can't govern without the country behind you forever, if you have enough Serious People Taking You Seriously on the teevee, why, maybe you can keep playing with your horrible war that the whole country hates for years at a time -- years, of course, conveniently divided into 6-month segments.
What incentive does the Bush administration have to accept reality about the war in Iraq? Tomorrow, they could propose that we combat Al Qaeda in Mespotamia with battalions of heavily-armored elite Kangaroo-Mounted Commandos. And by that afternoon we'd see a fucking WaPo OpEd talking about how marsupials play really well with NASCAR Dads, and William Kristol would be all over the idiot cable shows talking crap about how Islamicists are inherently incapable of resisting our brand-spacklin' new 101st Hop-Borne Division.
And the Democrats, why, they seem to fall for the allure of the stage-lights every time, like the heroine of some moralistic 1950s movie about a milk-and-Jesus young wheat-fed beauty queen from Nebraska going to Hollywood to Make It as a Star, only to end up a jaded alcoholic, a strung out marijuana-whore, or, worse... a Communist.
As Krugman points out, the country doesn't buy this kind of performance art, and is repulsed by these sorts of reflexive media critiques. The thing about the MoveOn ad is... nobody cared. And why should they? People think ads are stupid, and we've seen this show about the Heroic Generals before in this administration, and everyone thinks this war sucks and needs to stop.
We have exactly the same sort of dynamic here that makes movie executives churn out one shitburger would-be blockbuster flick after another, even though nobody goes to see them despite all the hype.
Bob Shrum, Karl Rove, Michael Bay: go box some frickin' kangaroos, you bastards...
