When Elites Bash Elitism

Written by Joan Walsh, posted by: Betsm

As Broder and Klein proclaim Palin a political star, they show they’re out of touch with “real Americans”

Joan Walsh/Salon.com~The same day the Washington Post released a poll showing a staggering 71 percent of Americans — and a majority of Republicans — don’t think Sarah Palin is qualified to be president, the Post’s David Broder and Time’s Joe Klein wrote columns proclaiming Palin a towering political force on the American landscape. It’s rare that Beltway conventional wisdom gets proven false the very same day it surfaces. But that probably won’t stop it from spreading.

Broder praised Palin’s “pitch-perfect recital of the populist message.” Klein hailed “the brilliance of Sarah Palin,” and suggested that “real Americans” can relate to “a woman who goes to war against the 19-year-old boy who knocked up her daughter and then posed for Playgirl,” and who calls national policy “current events … the high school term of art for the hour each week when students are forced to study the state of the world.” Klein compared Palin to the folksy hound dog Bill Clinton and suggested they had the same kind of populist appeal. (I know it’s just a coincidence Clinton wound up hospitalized for chest pains later that day.) The worst line of the piece? “One might even argue that you betcha is American for ‘Yes, we can.'”

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In State of the Union, President Obama Criticizes “TV pundits” for “reducing serious debates to silly arguments”

From President Obama’s January 27 State of the Union speech
Hat tip to Media Matters
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Colbert Knocks Conservative Pundits For Promoting Racial Profiling (VIDEO)

After suggesting that airports institute crotch screenings and check photo IDs of passengers’ balls, Stephen Colbert mocked conservative news pundits last night who have suggested scrutinizing anyone Muslim or named “Abdul.”

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Obama’s ‘Mistakes’: Way Too Early to Judge By Joe Klein

Opt-Ed by Joe Klein

Time—Over the past few weeks, Barack Obama has been criticized for the following: He didn’t go to Berlin for the 20th anniversary of the Wall’s coming down. He didn’t make a forceful enough statement on the 30th anniversary of the U.S. diplomats’ being taken hostage in Iran. He didn’t show sufficient mournfulness, at first, when the Fort Hood shootings took place, and he was namby-pamby about the possibility that the shootings were an act of jihad. He has spent too little time focusing on unemployment. He bowed too deeply before the Japanese Emperor. He allowed the Chinese to block the broadcast of his Shanghai town-hall meeting. He allowed the Chinese President to bar questions at their joint press conference (a moment memorably satirized by Saturday Night Live). He didn’t come back with any diplomatic victories from Asia. He allowed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters to be tried in the U.S. criminal-justice system rather than by the military. He has dithered too long on Afghanistan. He has devoted too much attention to — and given congressional Democrats too much control over — health care reform, an issue that is peripheral to a majority of Americans.

And all this has led to a dangerous slippage in the polls, it is said, a sense that his presidential authority is ebbing.

As a fully licensed pundit, I have the authority to weigh in here … but I demur. Oh, I could sling opinions about every one of the events cited above — some were unfortunate — but it would matter only if I could discern a pattern that illuminates Obama’s presidency. The most obvious pattern, however, is the media’s tendency to get overwrought about almost anything. Why, for example, is the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall demolition so crucial that it requires a President’s presence? Which recent U.S. President has gotten the Chinese to agree to anything big? (In fact, Obama has secured significant diplomatic cooperation from the Chinese on North Korea, Afghanistan and Pakistan.) Was his deep bow indicative of anything other than his physical fitness? (My midsection, sadly, prevents the appearance of obsequiousness in such circumstances.)

Stepping back a bit, I do see a metapattern that extends over the 40 years since Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy began the drift toward more ideological political parties: Democrats have tough first years in the presidency. Of the past seven Presidents, the two Bushes rank at the top in popularity after one year, while Obama and Bill Clinton rank at the bottom, with Jimmy Carter close by. There is a reason for that. Democrats come to office eager to govern the heck out of the country. They take on impossible issues, like budget-balancing and health care reform. They run into roadblocks — from their own unruly ranks as well as from Republicans. They get lost in the details. A tax cut is much easier to explain than a tax increase. A foreign policy based in bluster — railing against an “axis of evil” — is easier to sell than a foreign policy based in nuance. Of course, external events count a lot: the ratings of Bushes I and II were bolstered, respectively, by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the flattening of the World Trade Center. Reagan’s rating — 53% and headed south — was dampened by a deepening recession.

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Rachel Maddow Asks: Is Hasan A Terrorist ?

Posted by Audiegrl

Accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan was formally charged today with 13 counts of murder but not terrorism. Rachel Maddow is joined by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley to explain why.

So this is the master plan. If the right-wing pundits can label this mass-murderer as a terrorist, then they can say that Obama did not keep us safe, and that this is the first terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11.

I get it. I expect such schemes from the right, but this afternoon MSNBC’s Ed Shultz jumped on the terrorist bandwagon, and no matter what David Korn said, he would not budge. I know that Rachel could probably not use footage of her fellow MSNBC hosts, but I hope that Ed got the message anyway.

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