PUPPETMASTERS MANQUE
Atrios writes:
I actually don't think think the Perry "brain freeze" was any big deal, but apparently our liberal media will deliver an automatic apologia anytime a right wing idiot can't tie his shoes.
Um, I dunno. The link is to a New York Times article about brain freezes by the paper's health blogger, not a political writer. The point of the article is that, heck, everybody gets brain freezes! It's a typical Times pop-science take on a news item.
But I know what Atrios is getting at -- it does look as if Perry's being protected by the some in the press.
Yet I think if anything is at work, it's not a desire to bend over backwards for a right-wing buffoon -- it's a desire to bend over backwards for the media's current designated anti-Romney. The press desperately wants an anti-Romney because a primary fight pulls in more eyeballs than no primary fight. And the press now wants the anti-Romney to be Perry because his campaign rakes in big money (which is thrilling to insider journalists) and is run by veteran political hacks the insider journalists know personally. He (unlike, say, Herman Cain) is the right kind of anti-Romney. He and his people are fellow insiders.
The insiders would have been happy if Jon Huntsman could have been the anti-Romney, or Mitch Daniels or Chris Christie or Paul Ryan, because they all play by the insiders' rules. The insiders would have really been happy if Haley Barbour could have been the anti-Romney. (Hey, let's you and me go get a drank!) But of the available options, Perry was the best. And the insiders can't quite bear the notion that they can't even have him.
****
And now a song for Rick:
I think the brain-freeze does matter. We don't usually freeze up that way when we're talking about something we care deeply about and have thought in detail about. So for Perry, it's clear that promising to eliminate federal agencies is just a gimmick that he's been tossing around for months without much thought.
ReplyDeleteSure, the Republican field is awash in similar gimmickry. But it's worth pointing that out.
Whether it's TV, radio, newspapers, etc, they all want a horserace.
ReplyDelete2000 was kind of boring for them, since it was obvious for awhile that it was Gore on one side (because Bradley slept and 'inept' through the primary process), and Bush on the other (Rove and the establishment took McCain out fairly early with racist push polls).
2004 was pretty good to them on the Demcratic side, but a Republican snoozefest .
And then, 2008 - the first time in almost 60 years that an incumbent President or VP wasn't running, and you had great races on both sides.
So, they got spoiled, and want 2012 to be just as exciting!
And Goddamnit, whatever they have to do to make someone like Perry, or Cain, or someone else out to be the next great shite (intenional) hope, they'll do it.
Too bad Paterno's not younger, they'd speculate he'd make a fine candidate. Hell, they'd gloss over Sandusky's transressions too, for ratings.