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| Politics Forum Index » Bush Politics Forum » The Spin Starts Here – by Peter Collier... |
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| jose el fontanero... |
 Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:53 am |
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The Spin Starts Here – by Peter Collier
Posted By Peter Collier On November 5, 2009 at (no spam) 12:12 am
The Dems [1] are spinning so hard after Tuesday’s elections that the
earth may be in danger of flying off its axis. Some of the
intellectual chaos they have generated was on display Wednesday
afternoon on Chris Matthews’ [2] “Hardball.”
Admittedly, being on the Matthews’ show is a challenge for guests, who
have to struggle to get a word in edgewise as the hyperkinetic host
asks questions and immediately answers them himself and generally acts
less like an interviewer than someone on sodium pentatol.
But a few attempts at explaining last night’s Democratic debacle got
past Matthews’ logorrhea and all of them were calculated to protect
St. Obama from blame. Democratic Party hack Steve McMahon
contradicted himself at least twice every sentence when he said the
lesson of the election was that the Republicans who won in Virginia
and New Jersey were non-ideological but also that Republicans were
becoming a “white male Southern party” taken over by the “far right”;
that the voters were concerned about the economy and other problems
but also that the Republican sweep was “anti-incumbent rather than
anti-Obama.”
Next came Chuck Todd, more knowledgeable than Matthews, although
allowed to speak fewer words. His message was that the White House
knew that it was implicated in the vote. In fact it had acted
admirably in deciding to “own” the results in Virginia and New
Jersey. And, as David Axelrod had told Todd, it couldn’t let politics
continue to be local in 2010 but rather had to move quickly to
“nationalize” next year’s elections—that is, make them about Obama
with Obama as the central player. Then people would presumably
respond as they had in 2008—with an outpouring of robotic adulation
and the Dems would be okay. But can the President go back to the well
with a message of “change,” when the changes he has made so far have
been so disastrous? Can he really re-use last year’s hope-a-dope
strategy again when the people are so much sadder and wiser? Matthews
didn’t ask and Todd didn’t say. No one wants to disturb the white
noise of vanity inside the Obama cocoon.
The New York Observer’s Chuck Kornacki even offered a “silver lining”
from last night’s louring clouds. The results really represented a
potential failure for Republicans, he suggested, because they would
now be lulled into a false sense of well being and fail to deal with
internal conflicts that will prevent them from redefining their
tarnished identify. The results in Virginia and New Jersey were
caused by a poor economy, not a poor president, and if/when the
economy comes “roaring back” in 2012 the Repubicans would still be
taboo and Democrats still sitting pretty.
Matthews should have handed each of his guests Occam’s Razor.
Instead, he ended the show by putting on a Phillies cap and endorsing
Pedro Martinez for tonight’s game, even though “Petey” has admitted
that the Yankees are his Daddy, just as — for one election evening
any how–the Republicans are clearly the Daddies of the Dems. No other
explanation required. |
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