Cokie’s Law WaPo 2012

by digby

You know what Cokie’s Law is by now. Here’s an example of it hot off the pages of the Washington Post:

If you’re a Democrat, Romney’s ad will look wildly out of context and irresponsible.
But if you’re a Republican, you can make a credible case that the ad is completely justified.

It goes like this: Obama was contrasting two different tax policies — one being the Republican policy, and the other being the Democrats’ policy. Obama was talking about how the Democrats’ policy is better. But Democrats have been in the White House for four years now, and things are still bad. So obviously Democrats’ policies — on taxes or otherwise — aren’t that great.

If you’re predisposed against Romney, that sort of justification will seem ludicrous and make your skin crawl. But it paints just enough of a gray area over the whole matter to justify the attack.

Romney may be attacked in the days ahead for running an out-of-context campaign, and some objective reporters might even say it has gone too far.

But the fact is that these two comments further clarify a picture (or caricature, depending on where you stand) of Obama that’s already out there. And plenty of — nay, almost all — people who don’t dissect this stuff as much as we do are going to take the pulled quotes at face value.

Talk about a caricature. This one’s got it all: Cokie’s Law, Church of the Savvy, He said/She said. If I didn’t know better I’d think it was a parody by Jay Rosen.

(Be sure to click through and read the whole trainwreck.)