I really enjoyed this Matt Taibbi post even if he still has a Howard Dean blind spot

[beachmom]

The general principles he sets forth are 100% true. There really is a media conspiracy about who is treated as "serious" and who is treated as "unserious". He lays it out well. For those who remember the '04 primary wars, did Howard Dean ever get real backing from The Powers That Be? I thought the cash was largely raised from the internet and the lefty crowd. My issue is that John Kerry was abandoned for dead in 2003 showing that he wasn't that in with TPTB, and really, when the media went after Dean (and Matt conveniently forgets mistakes Dean made, plus that the Scream was not caused by the media but the full responsiblity of Dean himself), they seemed to split their support for Kerry AND Edwards. I distinctly remember reading an eloquent case in The Economist for John Kerry, so that is probably an example of him being judged as SERIOUS. I similarly remember hearing nice things being said about Edwards in the runup to Iowa. It was only after Kerry won Iowa that he was Inevitable.

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/23/yes-sarah-there-is-a-media-conspiracy/

1) The political media has always taken it upon itself to make decisions about who is and who is not qualified to be taken seriously as candidates for higher office. Without even talking about whether they do this more or less to Republicans or Democrats, I can testify that I witnessed this phenomenon over and over again in the primary battles within the Democratic Party. It has always been true that the press corps has drawn upon internalized professional biases, high-school-style groupthink and the urging of insider wonks to separate candidates into “serious” and “unserious” groups before the shots even start to be fired.

...

2) When that does happen, when the press corps decides to abandon all restraint and go for the head shot, it usually tells us a lot more about the reporters’ bosses and what they’re thinking than it does about the reporters themselves. Your average political reporter is a spineless dweeb who went to all the best schools and made it to that privileged seat inside the campaign-trail ropeline by being keenly sensitive to the editorial wishes of his social and professional superiors.

When their bosses were for the war, they were for the war, and they battered any candidate who was “weak on foreign policy.” When the political winds shifted four years later and the consensus inside the Beltway suddenly was that Iraq had been a hideous mistake, the campaign-trail reporters mysteriously started sounding like Sixties peaceniks on the plane and they hammered Hillary for refusing to admit her error on the Iraq vote (none of these pundits had to admit their mistake on the same question, but whatever), clearing the way for Obama.

...

Once the signal comes down that this or that politician doesn’t have the backing of anyone who matters, that’s when the knives really come out. When a politician has powerful allies and powerful friends, you won’t see reporters brazenly kicking him in the crotch the way they did to Dean and they’re doing now to Sarah Palin. The only time they do this is when they know there won’t be consequences, meaning when the politician’s only supporters are non-entities (read: voters), as in the case of Ron Paul or Kucinich. Like America in general, the press corps never attacks any enemy that can fight back. To illustrate the point via haiku:

Journos are pussies

Only attack when it’s safe

Lay off entrenched pols

3) So Sarah Palin is now in that category of politician whom reporters feel safe in attacking.

I find this overall to ring true, and it explains very well John Kerry's ups and downs. He is up now, but if TPTB gave the signal, he would be down again. It's crazy, but that is just how it is. Oh, and I just love this part where Matt is talking to the teabaggers:

And do you know what that means? That means that just as the antiwar crowd spent years being painted by the national press as weepy, unpatriotic pussies whose enthusiastic support is toxic to any serious presidential aspirant, so too will all of you afternoon-radio ignoramuses who seem bent on spending the next three years kicking and screaming your way up the eternal asshole of white resentment now find yourself and your political champions painted as knee-jerk loonies whose rabid irrationality is undeserving of the political center. And yes, that’s me saying that, but I’ve always been saying that, not just about Palin but about George Bush and all your other moron-heroes.

What’s different now is who else is saying it. You had these people eating out of the palms of your hands (remember what it was like in the Dixie Chicks days?). Now they’re all drawing horns and Groucho mustaches on your heroes, and rapidly transitioning you from your previous political kingmaking role in the real world to a new role as a giant captive entertainment demographic that exists solely to be manipulated for ratings and ad revenue. What you should be asking yourself is why this is happening to you. Even I don’t know the answer to that question, but honestly, I don’t really care. All I know is that I find it extremely funny.

Me, too. :)

[karynnj]

1. This is interesting, but it may somewhat overstate what the PTB can sell

It may be they are better at limiting who is "eligible", than in seling the one they want in some cases.

In 2008, it is very clear that HRC was "inevitable", the media and party were clearly behind her. Yet she didn't win. As she lost, there was an immediate lobby that she get a "special" position - a chair, she was entitled to, the majority leadership, and Secretary of State, to which Obama appointed her.

But, it is true that the PTB declared the choice to be Clinton, Obama and Edwards. Of them, Edwards is someone they pushed in both 2004 and 2008 - even though there was no "there" "there". Before the PTB showed with the "joke" exactly how he would be treated if he ran by, Kerry polled in the same range as Edwards or higher throughout 2005 and 2006. This was with both Edwards getting as much attention with their book tours as Palin, except with syrupy positive coverage and when Kerry was getting ridiculed for positions HRC later claimed as hers. What Taibbi describes explains completely why Kerry, who really was positioned 100% correctly in December 2006, could not have won. In some ways, the joke happening when it did was possibly lucky. Think about what would have happened if it didn't happen then, Kerry opted in after November 2006, using those 5 brilliant Faneuil Hall speeches. There is no way that he could have stayed 100% error (or spinnable as error) for a full year. As soon as that happened, the media would have destroyed his chances - and it is not clear MA would let him reverse his decision on running for Senate.

Tiabbi's blind spot in 2004 is not limited to Dean's implosion. The fact is that it is likely that Republican and Democratic PTB might have wanted Bush to win. Many were still intriguer by neo-con ideas (the NYT lavished praise on Bush's "spread democracy" inaugural speech) or they may have seen the Democratic chances as better if Bush was President for the next 4 years.

Judging by the what I saw in the media, if the media represents what the powers that be wanted, they:

1) Built Dean - Altough the left is reponsible from taking him fram a 1% to 5%, the bigger rise started when he got media coverage. Starting mid 2003, the media started covering Dean as the only antiwar candidate (ignoring Kucinich, etc) where in the first half of the year, they quoted Kerry and Dean. His numbers broke into double digits when 3 major newsweeklys put him on their covers at the same time. (I checked Pollingreport.com on that timing. http://www.pollingreport.com/wh04dem2.htm ) NO ONE else in that time frame had near the coverage.

(I suspect TBTB wanted a scapegoat from the anti-war side to lose to discredit the "McGovern" wing, but then were concerned that he was polling 20 points behind Bush --- then they started questioning Dean and ..

2) Built Clark, who came out of nowhere and was called the only star in the Democratic party except HRC by BC. Before he had any support, he had glowing front page stories in all major newspapers. It worked - until

3) Clark both imploded and didn't run in Iowa. Kerry won Iowa and NH. Kerry got the coverage of his victory speeches.

4) Then the media made a big effort for Edwards. Noone in the last 10 years has received more undeserved positive coverage than Edwards. The timing here was important. Clinton did not compete in Iowa and came in second in NH, he then became the frontrunner by winning the first multistate day, where most of the states were Southern. The next events in 2004 were SC, OK, ND, NM, AZ, DE and MO. This was a set of states that favor a Southern populist and are not the best for a NE liberal. Even when Edwards won only SC, they titled it a big Kerry win and a smaller Edwards one. (In fact, the NYT had an op-ed favoring Edwards after Kerry won 14 states and Edwards 1.

5) Then started the media tilting 100% to Bush.