Glenn Greenwald on recent MSM attacks on Obama

[BeyondGeography]

<It is inevitable that the Beltway elite are going to end up hating Obama for exactly the same reason they hated Howard Dean -- because by all appearances (which, in my view, are still incomplete and uncertain), Obama is not one of them, does not want to be one of them, and is actually going to run his campaign by attacking the toxic, cynical, corrupt attributes which define how they operate. Here, for instance, is what Allen wrote about Obama's response to the article:

<Asked about imprecise or incomplete statements by Obama over the years, campaign press secretary Bill Burton said, "Outside the Beltway, Americans get that this campaign is about having the vision to transform our nation. Inside the Beltway, snarky cynicism has a way of overcoming the real choices at stake in this race."
The one thing the media hates more than anything are people who gain popularity and power outside of their system, independent of their rules, and especially by opposing what they do and how they function. If that is really what Barack Obama is, this is, of course, but a tiny fraction of what will be hurled at him.

<...Obama's vocal opposition to the rotted cynicism that plagues our political discourse and drives our dysfunctional Beltway system is substantive. It is arguably the most important issue we face. Yet the jaded Beltway media, precisely because it is drowning in the very cynicism that Obama is criticizing, will never see that issue as anything other than empty cosmetics.>

<I say this with no intended hyperbole: there is no group driven more by mindless group-think and uncritical herd behavior than the Beltway media. Joe Klein chimes in today from the Middle East with a post entitled "Honeymoon over?" that echoes The Politico/Drudge anti-Obama theme:

<"Even over here in the middle east, you can feel the zeitgeist gently shifting--Obama ebbing, for the moment, at least in medialand. First, there was the Senator's lightweight performance at the Las Vegas Health forum, recounted by the Magisterial Moderator Tumulty. Then there was the Ron Brownstein column that I linked to yesterday. And now, this from Mike Allen.">

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

[tularetom]

1. I've been hearing about politico.com even on KO

so I visited their site. WTF???? Weren't there already enough bush ass kissing sites? It may as well have been called republico.com.