You may have seen this, from Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo:
Right Realizes It Can’t Kill Immigration Reform Without An ExcuseThe notion here is that the evil president will suspend the border-security provisions of the law, declare the border secure, and just let the brown horde overrun America. Or something like that.
While Republicans settle on a least-bad immigration strategy, it's dawned on reform opponents and their conservative allies that if the effort dies in the House, they'll need to bring a plausible excuse to the public -- that is, if they hope to sidestep at least some of the blame for the debacle.
And they think they've found one.
Specifically, they hope to draw a connection between the White House's recent health care reform implementation decisions and border security measures in the Senate's immigration bill to claim their opposition to comprehensive reform stems not from substantive objections but from a sense that the Obama administration will ignore parts of an immigration law it doesn't like....
The Washington Examiner ... sums it all up "Immigration reform is dead and Obamacare implementation killed it." ...
In response to this, DougJ writes:
... The details of the excuse don't matter much ... what matters is that it's something that ... the "Morning Joe"/David Brooks serious conservative crowd will be happy to repeat if and when the bill fails....I think what I usually think: yes, the mainstream media will accept this excuse as reasonable, and will describe it as the real reason Republicans blocked reform (rather than blame Republicans' newfound conclusion that they don't need to give a crap about non-white voters) -- but I think the media will accept the excuse primarily because, yet again, it spares journalists from having to consider the possibility that American politics has a Republican problem.
... I tend to think that establishment media is intrinsically conservative in terms of its structure: listen to what some rich old white man, grandpa Schieffer or Dancin' Dave, tells you to think.... I wonder how much the whole system encourages viewers to think conservatively.
I don't see the insider media world as overwhelmingly conservative necessarily, but I do think the vast majority of insider journalists have a vested interest in the notion that Republicans are reasonable people who are sincerely looking out for the best interests of this country, rather than sociopathic obstructionists who are destroying the country gradually through intransigence and obstructionism simply because they haven't been given the opportunity to take full control of the government in order to dismantle every law passed for the benefit of ordinary citizens in the last century.
Refusal to consider the notion that Republicans are crazy is to our political culture what refusal to consider heliocentrism was in Galileo's world.
So, yes, the Beltway will take the GOP's excuses at face value.
And our MSM folks can prove that sociopath's like Liz Cheney are reasonable people, because when they're at youth soccer games with the reporters kids, she never ate their children with a nice Chianti, and some fava beans.
ReplyDeleteVictor, No but they may have ate other people's children ...
ReplyDeleteRemember absence of evidence doesn't prove its non existence! ;-)
Steve
I always wonder why people play their political opponents games by allowing them to set the rules and their application.
I mean you (American lefties) allow them to redefine(?) words and terms(read make the meanings arcane or vague)
Specific to this Post the republicans do this to ( rather than with) words like 'conservative'. There are two dictionary meanings and neither apply to the republican useage ( what ever in is).
In reality their policies (particularly the Tea bag arm) are anything but real conservatism nor are their views non radical, they are extremist .
Thus they avoid having to actually define what they mean. Also they rob others from mounting the argument of what they really are . Fearful, selfish bordering on sociopathic ( i.e. messianic, narcissistic, infallible, anti society(al) and lacking in empathy).
This tendency is the same when it comes to their definitions of the opposition (lefties). Again they deliberately blur /distort what a liberal really is in political terms ( as in liberalism) . As for Communism and Socialism whell!
From a marketing perspective one must define the issue and as a 'party of inclusion' ( hmm?) that means set the terms of reference … the safest way is to demand the opposition use real meanings and real words. Otherwise it's spin and has no intellectual or moral high ground.
Consider what the not so good General said about storing everyone's emails. They redefined the word 'storing' to mean 'reading' regardless of your views on PRISM his answer was a lie in fact.
My point is so long as the lefties to lie to them selves nothing will change. Just in case you want to see the power of elastic definitions remember the coke slogans 'coke is the real thing '? huh? Or 'things go better with coke? ' it allowed them to associated their product to almost anyTHING pleasurable or fun. The truth of those slogans are whell dubious at best nonsensical is closer.
If The republican are challenged on their meanings as opposed to the real ones they flounder do it often enough and offer them an alternative and you have a marketing/ advertising meta strategy.