The Media and the Message

On Monday night, Rachel Maddow made a great point, in my view, about the "Beltway Press" as she calls it, or "The Villagers," as it is referred to derisively in the lefty blogosphere.  Maddow played extended clips from Bernie Sanders' filibuster, during which he forcefully made reasonable, persuasive and well-documented arguments about the gross unfairness of the tax cut deal, providing a statistical analysis of the growing income disparity in this country, demonstrating the falsity of the Republican contention that tax cuts for the wealthy will create jobs, and undermining the misleading claims about who is covered by the estate tax.  Maddow then explained that notwithstanding the important things Sanders had to say, the media ignored the substance and instead focused on the fact that this quirky old man ranted for over 8-1/2 hours on the Senate  floor. As she put it:

We've seen this happen again and again and again. Whenever liberals become central to U.S. policies, become central to U.S, politics, the beltway media that's responsible for covering what happens in Washington, loses their ability to stay focused enough on what liberals are saying that they stop covering the debate itself, and instead cover the facts that liberals are complaining about something. And they do it in a generic way that helps you understand nothing of the real debate.

[Related posts:  Vermont's Finest, Anger Management, No Se Puede, Lame and Lamer, Let's Make a Deal]