Thursday, November 20, 2008

Pravda's Mascot

It is ironic that the candidate who chanted “Unity” so tirelessly (before the focus groups promoted “Change” as the empty slogan of choice) will probably be the most polarizing politician in US history. There is a bitterness that no amount of Kool-Aid can ever quell. The peasants with pitchforks and weblogs will rise up against the mainstream media, but it will be their cute mascot who will bear the brunt of their hostility.

You can't blame the media for feeling their oats. We called them dinosaurs and left them for dead. But they are not dead. Not yet. They can still stack the deck with the best of them. They selected both of the presidential candidates and they selected the winner of the match race. Somewhere, Jack Molinas is smiling.

But the mainstream media have overplayed their hand. Romantic visionaries who predicted the day when the Internet made every man and woman media moguls gave way to more conventional thinking. Specifically, the old media would prevail online. The masses would follow CNN and the Associated Press into cyberspace because they had more credibility than Joe the Blogger. But where will the public go when the press squanders its last drop of credibility?
“Half of the press liked John Kerry. The other half hated George Bush.” Andy Rooney spoke these words out of school following the 2004 presidential election. The media were stewing in their own juices. They had worked hard to get their man elected and Carl Rove outwitted them once more. Maybe they were obsolete. 2006 emboldened them. They would not fail in 2008. Who cares about objectivity? There's a presidential election to win. There were scores to settle. Who you calling a has been?

By going full bore to elect Barack Obama the press may have forced the hand for Republicans and conservatives and Clinton Democrats. Maybe the McCain-caliber idiots will now realize that they cannot curry favor with the New York Times any more than Israel can get smoochie with Al Jazeera. Maybe now the coalition of the hopeless will establish their own media. Clearly, they cannot win playing with a stacked deck. Maybe that realization is sinking in.

Eventually Obama's flaws will be revealed and his sordid connections will be exposed. When Pravda invests in a cause, they stay committed to that cause. The cause will prevail but Obama will be tossed overboard. They turned on McCain. They turned on the Clintons. They turned on Carter and LBJ. As Mother Soprano said unto AJ, “What makes you special?”

For now Obama still has that new car luster and the media still get tingly when they discuss their savior. We see the drunk with the lampshade on his head dancing on the table and we consider what he clearly cannot foresee: Someone will soon have a brutish hangover. We grew to accept that the media could tilt the scales but we won't be so forgiving of their breaking our scales.

With Obama the media threw restraint to the wind. They pissed on the headstone of common sense. Did they go too far? I think so. 2008 might prove to be MSM's last hurrah. Change is on the way. Change we can believe in.

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