TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2011
Reading more of that stunning book: We thought we’d offer a few more thoughts on the fiery hero, Jonathan Chait, who has decided, twelve years later, to discuss the “media pathology” unloosed against Candidate Gore.
Just in the nick of time, Chait alerts us to this problem—in May 2011! But good God! In the last day, we’ve read back through the book he published in 2007. (Full title: The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics.) This re-reading has helped us remember why we were so stunned, in real time, by the part of Chait’s book which dealt with the press corps’ treatment of major Democrats, including Candidate Gore.
Our questions: Why didn’t Chait discuss this “pathology” in 1999, when it was actually happening? Why didn’t he discuss this pathology in the year 2000, as it continued to tilt the campaign in favor of Candidate Bush? A related question: Why did liberal writers in general fail to tell us about this “pathology?” Why did our fiery liberal heroes stay so remarkably quiet?
Make no mistake: Jonathan Chait could answer that question if he wanted to do so. On page 145 of The Big Con, he tells us this: “Having spent a great deal of time in the company of newspaper reporters, I can attest that they consider policy, especially economic policy, mind-numbing minutiae beyond their purview.” Can we talk? Chait has spent a lot of time around reporters—but he has also spent a great deal of time in the company of career liberal writers. He was at The New Republic all through Campaign 2000, when the journal utterly failed to challenge this pathology.
Why did Chait and his colleagues sleep? Chait could tell us if he chose. But Chait would jump off the Golden Gate Bridge before he would address such a question. And you can be sure of one other thing:
That big watchdog in Orange County will never confront him with such questions! Kevin Drum would take to his Jeopardy couch before an anti-tribal query like that ever passed his lips.
Why didn’t Chait speak up in real time? Drum will never ask.
Sorry! Your liberal heroes failed to warn you as that pathological, twenty-month war ground on. Today, they “warn” you twelve years later—and they will never, ever tell you why that silence occurred! Indeed, we strongly recommend chapters 5 and 6 of The Big Con for a stunning, textbook example of the way career liberals fight to avoid real discussion of the way the press corps works.
When Chait’s book appeared, we planned to spend a week on that part of the book—the part that deals with the press corps’ approach to presidential campaigns. We’re sorry now that we didn’t—though such a report would surely have troubled Drum, who is upset by the “millions of words” we’ve spent on such tedious topics. We will only tell you this: If you read chapters 5 and 6, you will see Chait do a good job defining a problem—a problem in which every major presidential Democrat had been getting slimed for his bad character. You will then see him go to heroic lengths to avoid discussing the role of the press corps in this pattern.
Chait insists that this pattern can’t reflect a political preference by the corps. He gins up silly “structural” explanations for the way this pattern obtains. He uses Nixonian passive constructions, taking away the press corps’ agency: In his telling, the GOP invents these phony character tales—and then, by some mysterious proves, they “find their way into the mainstream press.”
We wrote it in 2007, and we’ll write it again today: In that remarkable part of his book, “Chait does what so many career liberal writes have done in the past fifteen years—he goes to near-heroic lengths to downplay the mainstream press corps’ role in creating this pattern” (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/2/07). Indeed: Early in this two-chapter chunk, Chait offers the following thesis statement. Within the guild, all good children know they must say these things:
CHAIT (page 142): Blaming the media is, of course, the easiest crutch of the frustrated partisan. We should therefore be clear about our parameters. It is certainly not the case that the media have systematically favored Republicans over Democrats. While decades of conservative complaint have made most reporters and editors ultra-skittish about perceived liberal bias, it is also true that most elite journalists vote Democratic and approach the liberal side of most issues with familiarity and understanding…
As he continues, Chait’s prose makes it clear that the media actually had“systematically favored Republicans over Democrats” in the years since Bill Clinton arrived on the scene. But he works extremely hard to explain those facts away, having told us, right at the start, that it certainly can’t be the case “that the media have systematically favored Republicans over Democrats.”
It couldn’t be the case—but it was! In truth, it couldn’t be said to be the case by a career liberal player.
Today, Chait speaks with fervor about that media pathology. In real time, he kept his trap shut for two years, as did his “liberal” colleagues. For ourselves, we sent them mailers, we posted press releases, but we simply couldn’t get them to speak. In Chait’s case, he wrote all kinds of tedious shit about Campaign 2000 as this ugly, destructive pathology just kept on unfolding.
They failed you badly (they failed the world)—and Chait could tell you why they did! But Chait will never tell you the truth, not in a million years. A team of monkeys will fly to the moon before he explains the silence of his friends and colleagues. And let’s give props to all the enablers! Stretched out on his comfy divan, Kevin Drum will never ask for an explanation. People! So many words!
Joan Walsh will be on Hardball tonight (or not), kissing her good friend’s ass.
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