What Digby said. She has the transcript of Gov. Dean's appearance on Hardball with Matthews, with Matthews essentially sticking his fingers in his ears and refusing to believe, in the face of polling by Democracy for America and PCCC demonstrating otherwise, that the progressive base was sending a message. Their polling showed that voters in Massachusetts think the health care bill isn't strong enough, and that 73% of Obama voters who switched to Brown believed Obama isn't following through on the change he promised. Check out the entire transcript.
The central point to me is that Villagers have their preconceived notion of what any defeat means: that this is a center-right country and voters were saying that Democrats went too far to the left. Whether or not that matches up with polling or facts is irrelevant. It's why I'm so concerned that the rest of the progressive agenda- immigration reform, repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, ENDA, and other "hot-button issues" will be thrown under the bus until after the election, if at all. Our side has to push back quickly and wherever possible against the conventional wisdom parade. That means LGBT leaders have to take to the airwaves and op-ed pages with their own numbers demonstrating how LGBT voters will stay home in 2010 if change isn't delivered, making threats. Same on immigration- I found out the other day that, according to Pew, 50,000 new Latinos turn 18 every single month. This movement forward on stuff like the deficit-reduction commission and Gerry Connolly and Harry Mitchell calling for the extension of the Bush tax cuts will only be the start in terms of the shift towards what will and will not be done in 2010 unless there is pushback from our side.
So the Villagers have circled their wagons around FOX in the name of respect, comity and High Broderism. Why their don't actually join in the fun and report on FOX's biased coverage, since it might ultimately help their own ratings, is beyond me, but that's what we get. Ruth Marcus published an absurd piece in the WaPo on Monday, which Eric Boehlert takes apart, and yesterday ABC's Jake Tapper called FOX a "sister organization" and attacked Robert Gibbs over the White House's position. Other talking heads have taken up the banner. The Village doesn't actually recognize its Idiots, and has become them.
It's all very heartwarming to see all the little media Villagers gather around their wealthy potential future employer, Fox News, and defend it from the big bad White House, but seriously, is there any real doubt that Fox News (not the gasbags ---but Fox News itself) is biased? (As Boehlert asks here --- has Ruth Marcus ever watched Fox News?) There are so many examples that it seems ridiculous to have to make the case, but evidently the villagers are so brainwashed they can't even see what's before their very eyes.
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But just as it took nearly 25 years for the villagers to grok that even though he was invited to dinner parties by important people, Rush Limbaugh is actually a malignant blight on humanity, those who don't watch Fox News (and therefore agree with it) simply assume they must be ok because they hire lots of credentialed journalists and are invited to all the important social events. It would be downright unseemly if it turns out that right wing fascists are walking among them.
The whole thing reminds me of when Dana Milbank called HuffPo's Nico Pitney a "planted questioner" and a "dick", jealously upset that a new media outlet like HuffPo actually got a question in a live White House press conference. It's Villagers guarding their corridors of power, whether the people trying to come in is the HuffPo or the Obama administration.
I'm watching for the reaction of congressional Democrats, which I haven't seen much of. FOX gets elected Dems, former elected Dems, and Dem strategists on their network as their bread and butter, and a key to their legitimization and continued existence.
In something of a win, FOX was told that they should not "expect" Obama to appear on their network for the rest of the year. MoveOn launched a petition yesterday asking Democrats to follow his lead and stay off the network. It's a start towards "fringe-ifying" FOX by taking away those that gets it legitimization and viewership.
We in the netroots spend a great deal of time bashing the Villagers for the profound disconnect with reality, and the disconnect has rarely been more glaring than over the Stimulus bill and the lack of bi-partisanship in passing it. One of the themes I really admire in Glenn Greenwald's writing is the times he reveals prominent journalists implicitly presuming their own opinions must reflect the broad American polity not merely in the absence of empirical proof, but in direct contradiction to it as polling on that very question had been done.
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