“Politics at its best!”
by digby
Jay Rosen on the post-truth campaign:
Via Andrew Sullivan, who says:
Jay recently wondered how the press would cover a “post-truth campaign” for the presidency. He thinks it would fall under the category of “too big to tell”:
Meaning: feels too partisan for the officially unaligned. Exposes the press to criticism in too clear a fashion. Messes with the “both sides do it”/we’re impartial narrative that political journalists have mastered: and deeply believe in. Romney will be fact checked, his campaign will push back from time to time, the fact checkers will argue among themselves, and the post-truth premise will sneak into common practice without penalty or recognition, even though there is nothing covert about it.
And it’s not just campaigns. Here’s a post from 2009, chosen at random, featuring the man-boy MSNBC hosts have taken to calling “the sage of Capitol Hill” in which he just makes up a scenario out of whole cloth:
Shuster: What sort of efforts are Harry Reid and his cohorts making toward Russ Feingold?
Lil’ Luke: (smirking) You remember last week or ten days ago that Mary Landrieu was able to get 300 million dollars for Hurricane Katrina down in Lousisiana? Expect Russ Feingold to possibly get something, a nice little present, an early Christmas present from Harry Reid here, possibly that could go to other members.
Obviously David, you know it’s politics. These Senators want what’s best for their home states, if they can hold up a major bill like this and get something in return, they just might do it.
But I think the people who are interesting to look at here are one, is Mr Feingold here, as you mentioned because he is the apotheosis of the progressive wing, but also folks like Blanche Lincoln, like Mary Landrieu, who are very fiscally conservative. If this is very expensive, they might not be on board. We also have to look at Mr Lieberman who has given a little bit of a hint that he might like this idea, but he is very much opposed to the trigger and some folks are looking at Olympia Snowe to possibly give the Democrats that buffer, that one vote buffer they could lose somebody. But she’s not signed on to this 100% at all either David so there’s still a lot of jockeying to be done.
It’s politics at its best, as we like to say at MSNBC.
That was an entirely bullshit, cynical analysis of the legislative jockeying in the health care bill, presented as some sort of entertaining Villager spectacle. These people are a problem.
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