Why do media liberals "eat their own"? Using my own words, greed and Beltway "cool kid" cred

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Cannibal liberals
Why do left-leaning journalists eat their own?
By Neal Gabler
June 29, 2008

Oh, those crazy journalists. You know the ones I'm talking about. The one who described John Kerry as "French-looking" and made up some silly locution to show how out of touch he was -- "Who among us doesn't like NASCAR?" -- even though he never said it. Or the one who taunted Al Gore for claiming that he and his wife, Tipper, were the models for "Love Story" when Gore said no such thing. Or the one who described Bill Clinton as an "overweight band boy" and Hillary Rodham Clinton as "inauthentic." Or the one who tabbed Barack Obama "Obambi" and said that when visiting him at his office, she felt like Ingrid Bergman in "The Bells of St. Mary's," having to teach a bullied schoolboy how to box. Or the one who kept pressing Obama at a debate to fess up to his relationship with a 1960s terrorist.

Of course, what do you expect from right-wing nuts who will do and say anything to demonize Democrats? Except for one thing. All these examples -- and there are hundreds more -- were uttered not by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, David Brooks or any of the other Republican mouthpieces in our newspapers and on our airwaves. They were all said or written by liberal journalists, and even in a few cases by onetime Democratic operatives turned journalists, such as Chris Matthews and George Stephanopoulos. Indeed, the worst offender by far, the "Ingrid Bergman" in the example above, has been the New York Times' liberal columnist Maureen Dowd, who has never met a Democrat she hasn't disparaged.

And that is the point. Democrats wading into this year's rough media surf don't really have to fear the right wing because the right has staked out its own beach with its own folks and not many Democratic voters go there. For instance, only 7% of regular Fox News watchers voted for Kerry for president in 2004, according to Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. What the Democrats generally and Obama specifically have to fear is what the liberal media -- pundits, TV commentators and even some reporters at reputedly leftish newspapers -- will wind up doing to them. That's because, far from delivering the kind of spirited to-the-death defense that even the widely unpopular President Bush gets from most right-wing commentators, the liberal media almost always eat their own....

***

One of the surest paths to stardom in movies, television and politics has always been the guise of Everyman -- the person who purports to be one of us and with whom we can readily identify....

What we get, then, is a bunch of wealthy journalistic stars bending themselves into pretzels pretending that they are down-to-earth working stiffs vastly different from the politicians, at least from the highfalutin' liberal ones they cover. This was certainly a large part of the appeal of the late Tim Russert, who frequently mentioned that he was a poor Catholic kid from Buffalo, N.Y., where his father was a sanitation worker. Matthews and Dowd, among others, have also prattled on demagogically about their humble beginnings even as their stars have risen and they have become even less connected to the rest of us.

And it is the liberal politicians who continue to pay the price for the liberal journalists' self-promotion cum self-preservation. Beating up on well-educated, well-spoken liberals is probably the surest means of proving one's Everyman credentials and protecting one's personal brand without also, by the way, losing one's Beltway bona fides....

Which is all the more reason why Democrats' expectations of a favorable November should be tempered by the cold reality that Obama will be taking heavy fire from both sides....

(Neal Gabler is the author of many books, including "Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination" and "Life: the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality.")

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-gabler29-2008jun29,0,4277251.story

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. Neal Gabler requires a kool aid alert. Seriously ... you don't need this n/t

[Peace Patriot]

2. I think we will end up like South America--in more ways than one--but what

I'm specifically thinking of is how the voters in South America simply ignore the corporate media and vote for whomever they goddamn please, which, lately, has been REAL leftist leaders...in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and even Paraguay (recenty)--virtually the entire continent has gone way leftist--and, further north, in Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Chile and Brazil have some centrism in their governments, mixed with leftism. The others don't. And all of these countries have corporate media establishments actually far worse than our own. The people have learned to do their own networking and word-of-mouth communication, and organizing, and the corporate media--whether fascist/rightwing or phony liberal--has become largely irrelevant.

As a consequence, South America is on the rise as a world power, and I think it will be their century, not ours. They have all the oil, for instance. And it's now in leftist hands, with the profits being used to benefit the poor--with education, medical care, land reform, small business loans and grants, and other progressive programs. 12 countries recently formed UNASUR--the foundation for a South American "Common Market." With the eviction of the U.S.-dominated World Bank and its ruinous loans, increasing rejection of the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs," eviction of U.S. military bases (in Ecuador and Paraguay), and increasing rejection of U.S.-dominated "free trade" (monopolistic trade), and many positive signs--for instance, economic growth rates like that in Venezuela (nearly 10% over the last five years, with the MOST growth in the PRIVATE sector, not including oil), increasing cooperation on regional infrastructure and other projects, and an overall goal of social justice, South America if finally poised to create their own "Common Market" (and, not incidentally, common defense) without the U.S.

The key to this rather amazing, peaceful, democratic, leftist revolution, all over the continent, has been twofold: TRANSPARENT vote counting, and grass roots organization. I would add a third element: thinking big.

The transparent vote counting and the grass roots organization are what make it possible for the majority to overcome rich elites that control the media. Thinking big also helps. Thinking real social justice. Thinking real reform. Not thinking small--little sops to the workers and the poor, while the rich elite still owns and controls everything. Thinking transformation--a whole new paradigm of equality and human rights, peacefully achieved.

The disgusting spectacle of our so-called 'liberal' commentators in the corporate press, and the shabby treatment they give to Democratic candidates, is a symptom, not a cause. It is a symptom of NON-transparent vote counting (endemic, now, in the U.S.), and of our fractured communities (difficulties of grass roots organizing). The internet has gone some way to counter the latter (and to expose the former), which is, of course, why the corporate rulers want to control and cleanse it. If we lose a free internet, it will be very difficult to overcome this fascist coup that our own party has colluded in. (The Democratic Party leaders are the ones who made non-transparent vote counting--run by rightwing corps with 'TRADE SECRET' code--possible, among other betrayals.) We are such a big country, with such a mobile and often rootless population, that it may take decades of LOCAL organizing to build a national coalition for real reform--if we lose the internet--and we could well see worse horrors here than we already have, given the shredding of the Bill of Rights that has occurred.

But remember, it had to get really bad in South America--and I mean, really, really bad--before the forces of progress could gain a footing. If the whole story is ever told, I think it will likely start with the election reformers, back about a decade ago, or even further--the people who constructed the democratic institutions that made real vote counting possible. (These include the Carter Center, the OAS, EU election monitoring groups and local civic and political groups.) The indigenous have also been very important, in many countries. They are among the key leaders of this revolution--which has environmental roots (outrage among indigenous tribes at environmental pollution and destruction by often U.S.-based global corporate predators).

What we must do--for starters--is to throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor.' And the best hope for that is local. Power over our voting systems still resides in state/local jurisdictions, where ordinary people still have some influence. Forget Washington DC and its "Beltway" assholes--fascist or Vichy. It is a putrid cauldron of corruption, and no election conducted by Diebold, ES&S and brethren is going to change that. Internet or no internet, we MUST get rid of these voting machines (or achieve a 100% COUNTED paper backup). Without the internet, it will take longer. It is no accident that you hear not one breath of objection--no mention at all, nothing--from "liberal" commentators about 'TRADE SECRET' voting counting--the most outrageous assault on our democracy and our sovereignty that has ever occurred. 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting is not a symptom (like corporate 'liberal' commentators are). Voting IS our power as a people. There is no other. And it is no longer in our control.