A rare exception
by digby
Jake Tapper, confronting a Republican Trump defender this morning:
For the most part, it seemed that the pundits were tired of talking about Trump’s antics and are eager to get back to obsessing over emails. They are riveted to the latest Wikileaks dump especially since they contain items about them and they are eager to prove that the kind of public relations planning the campaign did is anomalous despite the fact that it’s as ordinary as the sun coming up in the morning.There were also lots of complaints that Clinton isn’t running the kind of positive campaign that people want, thus proving that they need to stop running searches for their own names on wikileaks and actually cover her campaign.
At this point there are only two beats — emails and Trump. Clinton herself is cartoon Malificent. But that’s her fault too for being so boring and uninspiring that the reporters would rather spend all their time reading emails. Maybe if she groped somebody’s crotch they might look up for a minute.
Donald Trump is right that he’s getting harsh treatment from the press. But the normal vetting was (mostly) delayed until the very end not because it was a strategy but because they thought of him as entertainment the way they think of Limbaugh and Hannity as “entertainment.” They didn’t take him or the poison he was injecting into the body politic seriously so they chuckled under their breath and spent all their time focusing on the horrible old bag they love to hate. It resulted in lopsided coverage until the end when most people’s views had already hardened. The polls look positive but it still isn’t a slam-dunk, (most people say the sex stuff hasn’t changed their minds) especially if the press succeeds in hammering home the fatuous notion that the choice is between two equally loathesome candidates. This morning’s pundit shows, which tend to set the tone for the week, were not reassuring.
.