"The Scream" Lives On

As you all know, I support John Edwards, but I have to point this out about another Democratic candidate.

I realize it’s way too much to ask of our elite Beltway journos and other pundits to actually analyze candidates for political office based on their positions on the issues, so instead, we have insider tripe such as this column from Anne E. Kornblut and Perry Bacon, Jr. of the Washington Post today. They wrote what is, in essence, more meta-data campaign fluff that does absolutely nothing to help a voter learn about either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (there’s a slight mention on Iraq near the end, but that’s it).

More than anything else, the article preoccupies itself with how much money the Clinton and Obama campaigns have raised, as if that by itself is the objective of the election.

And oh yes, we have these choice excerpts…

Like (Howard) Dean and (Bill) Bradley, Obama is strongest among elites, whom other Democrats derisively call "latte liberals" -- a group that voices strong opinions but is not big enough to win him the nomination. Polls show that Obama is ahead of Clinton among voters with college degrees, while Clinton has a huge lead among voters who make less than $35,000 and those who have graduated only from high school.

…

Obama (is “retooling” his campaign and talking about the economy and) has made other subtle changes as well. He recently pulled one of his closest aides, longtime spokesman Robert Gibbs, out onto the campaign trail to help sharpen his message. Aides are working to get the occasionally long-winded senator to speak in shorter, crisper sentences, particularly in debates and town hall meetings.

Advisers have also discussed Obama's going to Europe to help define his foreign policy record.

Yet the campaign rejects questions about whether it needs to do something different to win.

So let’s see – we have a comparison between the Obama campaign and that of Howard Dean (which, truth be told, flamed out from attack ads from other Dem candidates who also co-opted themes and methods from Dean’s campaign, as well as our media’s childish obsession with the “Dean Scream”…amazingly enough, Kornblut and Bacon don’t mention “the scream” here, probably because they no longer have to).

In the process of making the comparison between Dean and Obama, the highly pejorative phrase “latte liberals” is used, lazily attributed to “other Democrats” (I’ll expect an upcoming column from Kornblut and Bacon to refer to GOP candidates catering to “fundamentalist wingnuts” or “redneck Republicans,” though I know that won’t happen).

We are also told that Obama is “retooling” his campaign because he is “long winded” and needs to speak in “shorter, crisper sentences,” and he needs to travel to Europe to “help define his foreign policy record.”

I have just described what passes for actual substance in this article. And after reading it, I have just one question: can I be a Washington D.C. media “insider” one day too?

I mean, it’s easy, right? Just do a bare minimum of statistical research, come up with some quotes that may or may not be actually attributed the way you say they are, recycle some of the usually beyond-tired narrative about a particular candidate or other candidates of the same party (maybe even concoct some new nonsense about a candidate for president having to travel to Europe to win an election in this country), turn in your copy, then call it a day and head to the gym or to the watering hole in time for happy hour. What a gig!

No wonder individuals such as Glenn Greenwald take these people to task so frequently! However, at least there was a response to this nonsense.

"I'm puzzled by this Barack Obama 'second act' stuff," (campaign spokesman Robert) Gibbs said. "I'm watching the play, and we're still in Act One. And it's pretty good."

Don’t worry – Kornblut, Bacon and their ilk will find more nebulous, uninformative nonsense to scribble about, calling for the requisite clarification. It’s how they justify their existence.

Update: And by the way, in case anyone out there has any doubt that it's more important for our corporate media to reinforce stuff like this than it is to do actual reporting, I should note that I was at my doctor's office earlier today and, while I waited, I watched the NBC Evening News with Brian Williams and he aired a report extremely similar to this "story." It didn't include some of Kornblut/Bacon's accusations, but it did have "the Scream," and those were the only differences.