Goldilocks Journalism

by digby

When I saw this on Shuster yesterday, I knew it was going to be the big new GOP talking point:

SHUSTER: But it‘s good for them? I mean, Rush Limbaugh, it appears his ratings are up. Glenn Beck‘s ratings are through the roof. Glenn Beck was suggesting that the Obama administration is heading toward concentration camps, with those FEMA camps, and he accuses the Obama administration of embracing totalitarianism. Watch this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: We are a country that is headed toward socialism, totalitarianism, beyond your wildest imagination. I wanted to debunk these FEMA camps. I‘m tired of hearing about them. You know about them. I‘m tired of hearing about them. I wanted to debunk them. We‘ve now for several days done research on them. I can‘t debunk them. (END VIDEO CLIP)SHUSTER: I mean, it‘s crazy, isn‘t it? BLAKEMAN: It is. It‘s crazy as Jon Stewart is crazy or Bill Maher is crazy on the left. KOFINIS: No, no. BLAKEMAN: These guys—you have a massive deception because you want to take people away from your horrid policy. Jon Stewart started attacking Rush Limbaugh. Jon Stewart is a comedian, and so is Rush Limbaugh. He‘s an entertainer.

Chris Kofinis pushed back, but it was clear that this was going to be the new right wing line and he didn’t quite know what to do with it. It works.
Naturally, little Tuckie Carlson is among those leading the charge:

Tucker Carlson, who lambasted Stewart during an appearance on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” on Sunday, agreed in a chat on washingtonpost.com yesterday that the Daily Show host is a “player in the national conversation” but argued that Stewart’s stature means that he should “be held to the same standards everyone else at his level (including Jim Cramer) lives by.”

Poor Tuckie. He’s never quite been the same. He calls Stewart a “Partisan Demagogue,” which is just funny.
That piece above was written by Chris Cilizza who I am guessing heard some of this from Republicans, although it’s perfectly possible that he put it together himself from all the chatter. But it doesn’t really matter. The Republicans are obviously trying to convince the MSM that Limbaugh and Stewart are two sides of the same coin. It’s standard working the refs stuff and it may just work for the village media since they don’t understand what Stewart is doing in the first place.
But Stewart isn’t actually a partisan and I do worry that he’s going to take the bait and start worrying about being perceived as such. I expect that he’s too smart for that, but I hope he’s aware of it and guards against it having a subconscious effect. The wingnuts are good at this stuff, and the media will help them because while they don’t understand Stewart’s (and Colbert’s) kind of satire, they do love to see the politics in perfectly symmetrical partisan terms. He said/she said makes for easy coverage so they have more time twitter each other about what they had for lunch.
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