The Best Of All Possible Worlds

Greenwald, insightful as usual, on the permanent optimism of the MSM, as regards the GOP (via Atrios):

Everything is always good for the Republicans
One of the important points you learn from listening to political pundits is that every event and every controversy is always good for the Republicans. No matter what the controversy is — even if it arises from the President’s getting caught breaking the law — the more it’s talked about, the more political benefits will accrue to the Republicans, because most Americans are on their side. Here is what Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes said this weekend on “Beltway Boys,” during the segment they playfully call “the Buzz” — where they share with us the insightful Washington political whispers to which they are privy (from LEXIS):

KONDRACKE: Here’s “The Buzz,” Fred: the NSA spying issue’s going to be back before Congress when they get back in – in September. And Arlen Specter in the Senate Judiciary Committee had made a deal with the White House, that – that the issue will be put before the FISA court for adjudication.

The Democrats who say that they want terrorists bugged are nonetheless saying that – but – that Specter gave away too much, and it’s going to delay the whole
thing, and that’s going to play into the hands of the Republicans in November.

BARNES: Yes. I’m not surprised at Democrats.

Even a scandal that arose because the President has been illegally spying on Americans — and even legislation designed to eliminate all limits on the President’s ability to eavesdrop on their conversations — is going to be a great boon politically for Republicans. It will “play into the[ir] hands.”

This has been going on for months and months. The New York Times first revealed the President’s NSA lawbreaking on December 16 — more than nine months ago — and, almost from the first minute, we have been told endlessly that the NSA scandal would be a great boon to the President. And yet all that has happened since Decmeber is that the President’s approval ratings have collapsed and virtually every poll shows Republicans in deep trouble politically.

It does sometimes seem as though on January 20th, 2001, a sooty Dick Van Cheney took us into the animated world in “Mary Poppins,” where penguins dance (they’re gay and French, but it’s okay if it’s a cartoon) and the carousel horses just take off and go where they please (like death squads).

Explore posts in the same categories: Color Commentary, Kabuki, Misdirection