the formerly "reality-based community," both in form and content, adopting every characteristic of the corporate media.

So, come primary time, you take what the candidates throw at each other and mix in all the b.s. from the sold out media,

AND

the silence from the DC Dems,

AND

now the 'me too' ism of the I-wanna-be-nagourney-teddywhite blogotopian big shots,

and you got the current mess.

Recall, there are:

-- 100's of Congresscritters with a -D on their name in DC,
-- 1000's of their staffers employed in media and public relations and press and commuincations
-- TENS OF MILLIONS IN SALARIES for all of the above,

and since I was 20 in 1980 making about 4 bucks an hour, all these big shots can do is:

-- make excuses for getting the snot kicked out of them,
-- lose,
-- oh ... keep their highly paid jobs making excuses getting the snot kicked outta them!

it is toooo bad to see blog-o-topia 'leaders' basically join the sold out scum of the media with respect to stupidity, BUT

what the f*** are the a$$hole$ who are paid to fight the fascists doing?

It seemed like Obama was using the Republican framing to dog whistle to the Village that he was no Angry Black Man and that they didn't have anything to fear from him.  At the time I thought this was horrible for the party, but probably smart politics for Obama.  Joe Lieberman has worked this angle for years and so, to a certain extent, has John McCain.

I don't mean that he is seeking the credit, but just that the problem get fixed. As he puts it, it has turned into a shirts v skins game and the shirts cheer when the skins get nailed by the media, no matter that it is to the benefit of the ultimate common opponent.

Frankly a lot of the big blogs have lost all credibility.  For me, it was also how they ignored, excused and/or abetted gender-based attacks.  I don't care if they don't like hillary, but that rhetoric is inexcusable directed at any woman and they did all women a disservice by giving it a pass.

As someone who worked for 15 yrs in a "creative class" job, and has a graduate degree, I take offense at the Obama camp dissing Clinton supporters as lowbrows. And I take even more offense at many Obama fans' unquestioned scorn of anyone with "less" education or talents than themselves. As if any of that makes a scrap of difference.  What every happened to the essential value of every human being?

"Respect, ok, that's a basic human right." Bruce Cockburn

In reality, the audience was so loud that there was nothing odd about Dean having to yell as loud as he did. In fact, in alternate coverage of the event, it sounded like he could barely make himself heard over the crowd.

This is all speculation, but I was left with the impression, that the Democratic leadership was complicit in the Dean take-down. Meaning that they didn't want him to be the nominee and they let the dogs out.

I've got the same vibe this time around about Hillary, the leadership has released the media hounds on her; or at least they're doing nothing to kep them at bay.

Hasn't he always been held in very high esteem by the the left and the blogosphere?

If so, doesn't it stand to reason that we should be hearing a LOT MORE about the 'fact' that Krugman seems to believe Hillary would make a better President all-around. Especially at sites that aren't openly anti-Hillary.

However, they waited until THE LAST MINUTE to rip the guts out of Kerry back in 2004, with the endless uncritical repetition of the Swift-Boat smear. The take-down works best when the candidate is taken off-guard LATE in the game.

Set aside your ruminations on the media's issues with Clinton, and your perception of Obama's ability to weather the relatively tame challenges the media has dealt him thus far.

My friend at CCN (Clark Community Network)posted a FHA of a party she attended last night, and her conversation with both O supporters, and a few who had voted for Hillary in the primary, but were sliding over to Obama because of Hillary's negativity and nasty campaign tactics. It's a good example of how to get people to realize they're being bamboozled by the very same media we all used to fight against, without putting them on the offensive.

An exercise...
Submitted by ms in la on March 30, 2008 - 1:06pm.

A party last night in the Hollywood hills. About 50 people. All Dems, only about 50% Americans born in America. A good number of Iranian Americans. Me blabbering about politics as usual. These people all know me so they've come to expect it. They know who I support. We had a small band of serious Clinton supporters - some surprising. An actor, middle aged, single male and really quite the womanizer-- not someone you'd expect to be so staunchly Clinton... but he's uber political, reads and actually THINKS for himself and - here's the key- he KNOWS that the press is lying most of the time. He didn't forget that important lesson we all took 8 yrs to learn. Seemed his real reason for being in her corner was he (1)Remembers the real 90's fondly and (2) (more importantly) Feels she is the one tough enough to beat McCain. He had a few problems with some of her McCain comments awhile back but we talked them over and he's now going on a Super Delegate letter writing campaign.

There was a whole family from Bev Hills that are strong Hillary supporters, all generations. We all of course commiserated about the unfair media bashing. They all have turned off everything as well and listen to more music. There were split marriages - Wife Clinton ; Husband O! The wives huddled on the couch with us to talk--

The host- a strong Clarkie- and his wife who actually has run for local office -- both of them Green and very political-- they were heading in the O direction, so we talked. And talked. It's always about the He Said - She Said. She said "Wright" She said "McCain" She said "Sniper fire".... and in the end you bring it back to how that translates into how someone would govern... or not. They voted Clinton in the primaries but are pulling away now. In the discussion you could see traces of the very footprints of the media on their thought processes.

In all the yammering last night I found one consistency from an exercise I strongly recommend anybody use in your own conversations on the topic...Each person who would give me the rote response about how negative SHE has been, HER attacks, etc- you know the chorus... I would listen and then calmly ask... "Really? I'm curious. Can you just give me a few examples of things she did that you found the most egregious?"

And then you wait.

You can enjoy the view while you wait. Get another drink. Have some more of that yummy Cuban cheese pastry. You can listen to the crickets. Or you can watch the mouth moving with sounds coming out that are... not really words. You get... "Um, well, uh....I really think she has gone way over the top. She uh well... I don't like the attacking she's been ....um.... doing and --" Stumble and stammer.

So you come back to -- "Yes, but it seems to be troubling you so much- so I'm sure you can give just one or two -- the most offensive examples of what's been bugging you so deeply?

Then you wait some more.

The reason this is good to practice is not to make a fool out of our friends and associates... but to have them recognize for themselves how subjected they've been to the 'brainwashing' memes the media are bombing us with. The "attacks", the "kneecapping" etc. After you relieve them of their discomfort-- I usually step in right after they've claimed, with some degree of embarrassment, that they know there are many, many examples but they just can't seem to retrieve any right now- Must be the wine, they didn't sleep well, they had the flu last week, the music is too loud, and they are very hungry, besides, business was bad this month... That's about when I ask that they try to separate in their mind - what their brain has "learned" from actual witnessing, from what they've been told / programmed to think. By electronic jabberwocky. It seems to register after they've been forced to shuffle through the memory bank and come up empty.

If we as a culture continue to magnify and uber focus on the meta He Said She Said that they endlessly hammer into our heads ... we'll never have enough vision left over to focus on real issues and real candidate's real abilities.

We can all agree-- as much pleasure as it seems to give people to gasp, faint, scream and collapse in hyperbolic outrage over something someone said this week (candidate, surrogate, preacher or spouse)... history has proven that most of what politicians SAY tells us very little about what they will actually DO.

This little exercise helps point that out without preaching it.

Back to you!

Basically you have two groups of people who made two different choices. As time has gone on during the campaign people have found more and more reason to support the candidate of their choice and more and more reasons to reject the candidate they oppose.

At this point as the venom has grown and the disussion has in general become less rational the two groups have retreated into their safe echo chambers where they can continue to push infomation which supports their point of view and reject information which counters it.

It's gotten so bad that some people claim they would prefer John McSame to either of the two democratic candidates even though he is rushing to the right as hard and fast as he can to consolidate the right wing base.

It's truly a remarkable (and very disturbing) phenomenon.

What is the 'word on the street' do you know if he has an overall higher assessment of Hillary?

If you find TalkLeft to be so entirely dishonest, why bother hanging around?