Ah, Politico. JournOlism at its finest.
Here we have the first real vote of the 2012 season with all eyes on the GOP, and Mike Allen’s idea of a “headliner ” for his live stream’s “instant analysis” is DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Let me get this straight. Their headliner for tonight — the one they want to promote to demonstrate how their coverage will best the competition — is the hacktastic chair of the other party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Who are the other “special guests”? … Chug your drink when Wasserman Schultz offers up these cogent points about Republicans:
- Republicans wanting to “literally drag us back to Jim Crow days“
- Refusing to increase spending amounts to something “almost like dictatorship“
- Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform will “throw you to the wolves“
- Ryan’s overall budget amounts to a “death trap for seniors” and “a tornado through nursing homes“But Republicans should stop “demonizing their opponents Michael Moore? Bill Maher? Janeane Garofalo?
This is — if you’ll pardon the expression — Mike Allen’s playbook. To portray whatever Wasserman Schultz will say tonight as “analysis” is beyond absurd. But Politico is so deep in the tank for Obama, so determined to destroy our candidates one by one, that what Politico is doing here actually makes sense.
Wasserman Schultz now has the power of Politico behind her to help define what tonight means. And you can bet she’ll do her job admirably when it comes to spin, lies and, most importantly, coming up with that one thing, that one gaffe, that one stupid little moment that all of Politico can then turn into an anti-GOP narrative meant to obscure the message coming from our frontrunners.
Whoever the GOP winners are tonight (assuming there’s more than one), you can bet that the victory speeches will be loaded with criticisms directed at President FailureTeleprompter. But if Obama’s Politico Palace Guards can turn the narrative into something crafted out of whole cloth that hurts the GOP, Politico can then attempt to make tonight’s story about that, about anything other than Obama. And who better to plant the seed of that narrative than the DNC Chair?
Having Wasserman Schultz as an “instant analysis” headliner also makes business sense for Politico. Through their biased reporting and recent mating with MSNBC, Politico is becoming just another Huffington Post (but one that still dishonestly poses as “objective”). Because Politico puts their left-wing agenda above all else, its traffic has dropped considerably. By appealing to the left, by bringing on Wasserman Schultz on and laughably defining what she does as “analysis,” Politico appeals to and holds on to what’s left of their customer base.
The good news for those of us who believe in objective journalism is that the sheep’s clothing is being removed from this left-wing wolf.
Maybe a better metaphor is an emperor without clothes we now are openly laughing at.