Robert Reich: "Old Politics ... Old Media Are Irrelevant Now"

I am surprised, in waking up this morning, that the Clinton Campaign hadn't worked up another faux outrage.

Who would think they would do such a thing?

I half expected that Howard Wolfson would be plastered all over morning cable, boiling over that Barack Obama insulted an American Icon and Hero, Annie Oakley, and that he should be fired, equating it to former Obama aide, Samantha Powers calling Hillary a monster.

Which, in the nature of the Clinton Campaign, and as Wolfson has done previously, he would actually be dissing his own candidate, connecting those dots.

It's all "Bitter ... Small Town ... Working Class Voters" in the news cycle today.

Over ...And Over ... And Over ...

Not that the MSM and Cable New Nitwits are actually contributing to the discussion, offering enlightening information on the subject ... It's more bouncing around between the three presidential candidates, to poke-and-prod them into a "Gotcha" moment ... Throw out a jab or make a gaffe, they need fill their afternoon and evening loops, so they can bring in more talking heads, and rehash everything they babbled on about in the morning.

And it was pretty much like that yesterday.

Little Timmy Russert had on his MTP yesterday, the likes of Bob Shrum, whose career work is on par with jumping out of a boat and still, not being able to hit the water, and, the couple Most-Voted-To-Inhabit-Haunted-Houses, Mary Matalin and James Carville, carping and fuming about Obama and the small town/bitter comments.

To some, being there was a woman in the mix, the thought of diverse comment and opinion might filter in?

More, and more, MTP is looking like a cross between the a Country Club's Early-Bird Special and the Dead Poets Society.

"Must-See-White-Man-TV"

Scarecrow, over on Firedoglake, in his "Bitter? Why Should Americans Be Bitter?", had a good riff;

It's a shame the Clintons are reduced to telling such important truths in private to Harris and Vandehei . . . and to voters in Indiana and Pennsylvania, . . and somehow it just came up on CNN, NBC (wasn't having McCain/Clinton surrogates Matalin/Carville on MTP to attack Obama a clever metaphor?), and ABC's This Week (who can beat George Will explaining "condescending" and "out of touch" with ordinary Americans?). It's a relief we won't need to hear this from the right wing freak show.

However, all is not lost, for there was one voice out there - Robert Reich - that seemed to "get it"

It it brought a smile to me, for I do enjoy, the not-too-often times, when someone bigger, more famous than I, basically says something that I wrote about.

On Saturday, The Garlic jumped into the Obama/Small Town mess (See "Obama Minister Wants To Nuke Small Towns!") and in it, offered;

"It's one thing for the MSM to jump on this ... They have an agenda ...Gotta serve the Corporate Party Line ... They have to keep truth out of the news, better just to offer campaign fluff and pap, like MSNBC the other day, with Tweety (and, disappointingly, David Shuster) jumping up-and-down on Obama's back over orange juice.

Orange Juice!

We just had Petraeus and Crocker in Congress, continuing to sell Bush's Iraq War (and the new one, against Iran) and there was bombshell breaking news, on how all the big cheeses in the Bush Grindhouse met regularly to map out the Torture Program, all this on top of the bleak economics of the country and these lint-heads get all lathered up over orange juice.

Help Me Mister Wizard!

Okay, not earth-shattering commentary, picking out the dolts in the media.

If you played that as a game, you'd become bored inside of an hour

Here's what Reich promulgated yesterday, in his "Obama, Bitterness, Meet the Press, and the Old Politics";

Listen to this morning’s “Meet the Press” if you want an example. Tim Russert, one of the smartest guys on television, interviewed four political consultants – Carville and Matalin, Bob Schrum, and Michael Murphy. Political consultants are paid huge sums to help politicians spin words and avoid real talk. They’re part of the problem. And what do Russert and these four consultants talk about? The potential damage to Barack Obama from saying that lots of people in Pennsylvania are bitter that the economy has left them behind; about HRC’s spin on Obama’s words (he’s an “elitist,” she said); and John McCain’s similarly puerile attack.

Does Russert really believe he’s doing the nation a service for this parade of spin doctors talking about potential spins and the spin-offs from the words Obama used to state what everyone knows is true? Or is Russert merely in the business of selling TV airtime for a network that doesn’t give a hoot about its supposed commitment to the public interest but wants to up its ratings by pandering to the nation’s ongoing desire for gladiator entertainment instead of real talk about real problems.

Hmmm ... Not bad, if I say so myself ...

And Reich wrapped up with this, a nice, clean, Louisville Slugger, swing-of-the-bat;

Bitter? You ain’t seen nothing yet. And as much as people like Russert, Carville, Matalin, Schrum, and Murphy want to divert our attention from what’s really happening; as much as HRC and McCain seek to make political hay out of choices of words that can be spun cynically by the mindless spinners of the old politics; as much as demagogues on the right and left continue to try to channel the cumulative frustrations of Americans into a politics of resentment – all these attempts will, I hope, prove futile. Eighty percent of Americans know the nation is on the wrong track. The old politics, and the old media that feeds it, are irrelevant now.

Amen, Brother Reich!


Bonus Bitter, Small Town Links

YouTube: Barack Obama on Rural and Working Class America, Circa 2004

Hunter/Daily Kos: Obama Orange Juice Watch... Day Whatever

ABC News: Rev. Wright: Fox's Hannity 'Stuck on Stupid'; Obama's Former Minister Breaks Silence, Rips Fox News During Funeral Service

Creature/State of Day: Annie get your gun

Arianna Huffington: John McCain Should Go on Vacation, Hillary Clinton is Doing His Job for Him

Obama Minister Wants To Nuke Small Towns!

Give it another day, or two, and we'll probably see this headline somewhere, the odds-on bet, on Faux News...

Or, the Right Wing Freakshow will serve this up, with extra, extra spicing, over the radio airwaves ...

A whole lot of panties bunched up last night, and today, (go to Memeorandum for a peek) over remarks made by Barack Obama last week, at a fundraiser in San Francisco

Here's what he said;

So, it depends on where you are, but I think it’s fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people are most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre…they’re misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to ‘white working-class don’t wanna work — don’t wanna vote for the black guy.’ That’s…there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it’s sort of a race thing.

Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism.

But — so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What is the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is so we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — to close tax loopholes, uh you know uh roll back the tax cuts for the top 1%, Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to uh middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide healthcare for every American.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you’re doing what you’re doing.

In a phrase, forever immortalized by our Vice President ... So!

Wait a minute! ...

OMG! ... He used the word "bitter", to describe the feeling people may have, from being screwed over for too many years ...

OMG! ... He criticized Guns and Religion, inferring that they both may be a problem, that both may be a screen, a mask, to front for other problems ... They both get in the way of dealing with other, more important issues, issues that effect the daily lives of people - in small towns - and in big cities.

It's one thing for the MSM to jump on this ... They have an agenda ...Gotta serve the Corporate Party Line ... They have to keep truth out of the news, better just to offer campaign fluff and pap, like MSNBC the other day, with Tweety (and, disappointingly, David Shuster) jumping up-and-down on Obama's back over orange juice.

Orange Juice!

We just had Petraeus and Crocker in Congress, continuing to sell Bush's Iraq War (and the new one, against Iran) and there was bombshell breaking news, on how all the big cheeses in the Bush Grindhouse met regularly to map out the Torture Program, all this on top of the bleak economics of the country and these lint-heads get all lathered up over orange juice.

Help Me Mister Wizard!

Then, of course, both Duck-and-Dodge Hillary "Sniper-Fire-Survivor" Clinton and Stumblin' Bumblin John "If You Knew Sunni, Like I Know Sunni" McCain have to jump all over Obama for his remarks, calling him elitist and out-of-touch.

Please ...

What's getting lost in the din, something that doesn't exactly fit the storyline for the MSM and Cable News nitwits, is Obama, pretty much, goes helmet-less and deals with adversity straight on ... He jumps on it, and, to the best of his strong abilities, doesn't let others pen the story, or, at minimum, speak for him.

There was the "Minister Problem", so Obama goes out and hits one of the park with his Race Speech...

Now we have everyone making hay with his San Francisco comments, and he fires back, right away, with this;

Obama Responds to McCain and Clinton attacks in Terre Haute; Barack responds to criticism from Hillary Clinton and John McCain, at a town hall meeting in Indiana




Pay close attention to this story ...

There's going to more people, feverishly working with paint-and-paint-brushes, on it, than at a Benjamin Moore convention ...

And, eventually, their work will have the canvas looking like "Obama Minister Wants To Nuke Small Towns!"

It's up to you, the good people of Pennsylvania... You're next in line, so you can stand there and inhale the paint ...

Or, wake up and smell the coffee ...


Bonus Small-and-Big-Town Links

Catherine Crier: Punished for the Truth

Ezra Klein: Obama Turns All Thomas Frank On Us

Jill/Brilliant at Breakfast: Why is anyone having the vapors over this?

Jeff Fecke/Shakesville: Barack Obama Hates You

Anonymous Liberal: Going Too Far

Andrew Sullivan: The Red-Blue Divide