Reality Campaigning

by digby

I don’t really have a point in bringing this Media Matters observation up other than to just point out for the 458 thousandth time that conservatives are dishonest hypocrites:

On November 15, 2008, shortly after Obama’s election, [Fox’s]Pinkerton opined that MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who at the time was reported to be considering running for Senate in Pennsylvania, “should resign and not have a platform on the air.”

Now fast forward to the October 9, 2010, edition of Fox News Watch, during which Alan Colmes brought up (to the obvious discomfort of host Jon Scott) the fact that Fox News employs several people who, by that point, were widely reported to be potential presidential candidates. Pinkerton responded by dismissing Colmes’ point, saying “at most there’s three” potential candidate working for Fox out of “at least fifteen Republicans” who were considering running:

I think it’s worth thinking about the implications of this new situation in which potential candidates are given years long sinecures with a media company. In Fox’s case, we’re seeing a primary playing itself out on the air (which is fairly amusing at this point with all the Rove/Palin sniping.) But with Citizens United I’m assuming there are no problems with in-kind contributions or anything like that so this may evolve into the way politics is done.

How long before all presidential campaigns become Reality TV shows, with primaries voted on through through texting and twitter? Isn’t it inevitable?