Today, at Hullabaloo, digby posts perhaps the 1 billionth blog post by a leftish blogger pointing out that the mainstream media (by which I mainly mean the Beltway media) has sacrificed truth to a false objectivity by claiming, against all the evidence, that the parties share equal blame for the dysfunction of the present American government. Her immediate point is that HIllary is entirely right in ignoring the mainstream press and taking her case directly to the people:
In the first place, it means that Hillary is entirely right in refusing to play by the traditional rules. The mainstream political press has itself rendered these rules obsolete by failing to report on the most important political story of recent years – the extremist conquest of the GOP. Reporters and commentators who refuse to report this reality as an objective fact about modern American politics cannot possibly also play the role of impartial arbitrators or objective journalists when covering a Democratic political candidate.
But we must not forget that the false equivalency ends when the press can get a Democrat in the cross hairs. By any standard all of the declared and undeclared Republican candidates for president are extremists, including Jeb Bush, who will always be portrayed as a moderate no matter his actual positions. They are extreme both in relation to the current majority of the American people and historically. Sure, they would fit in comfortably with lynching defending Southern Democrats of the 1930s or corporate stooge Supreme Court judges of the early 20th century, but one would hardly call either of those groups moderates. We will not see any of these candidates painted as extremists, certainly not explicitly, and if implicitly, so politely that no one will notice.
It is, however, a given, that Bernie Sanders will not receive like treatment. Despite the fact that he polls better than any of them (and yes, I understand there are fewer Democratic candidates. I am a fan of Mr. Arithmetic) he is already being marginalized. This despite the fact that his policy positions are fairly moderate by historical standards. For the most part, he’s at about the same place as your standard liberal would have been in 1968. The American people haven’t really moved to the right since that time, but the range of acceptable discourse in our Nation’s capital surely has. The reasons for that shift are a bit complex, but the Beltway media has certainly been complicit in that shift. So be prepared. There is an asymmetry at work when it comes to the “both sides” meme. In this country, there is no longer any such a thing as a right wing extremist, but anyone on the left who goes so far, for instance, as pushing for expanded Social Security benefits, is a dangerous radical, as Bernie will surely be painted. Whether the Beltway media can any longer influence the people is another question. Hillary is betting that they can’t, and I think she’s right.
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