Lazy Punditry: David Gregory Protests Too Much

     I see that Gregory is quite bent out of shape that some from the Obama Administration have referred to the media narrative that the fiscal curb is the fault of both the parties-'a pox on both your houses;-is just "lazy punditry."

    What's that matter David? Does the shoe fit? Today he lashed out saying that 'the American people care about results' that the President needs to understand that its not just about "being right." He suggests that ultimately if we go over the cliff and to suffer from these higher tax rates-I like the rest of us could see this in a week or so, though I think there are ways they can forestall the effects short term-Americans will blame everyone in Washington, and the President will take a large share of any blame as, well, he's the President.

   As for this talk about Americans caring only results not the causes, well that was the narrative that lazy journalists like Gregory and his fellow lazy journalists like Bob Woodward and David Brooks-who fittingly was on Gregory's Meet the Press this morning-were pushing during the election. Americans wouldn't blame the obstructionist GOP and wouldn't understand that events in the EU were a problem for the U.S. recovery. All they would care about were results and since the results weren't as stellar as anyone wanted them to be, everyone would blame the President and he alone.

   Mitch McConnell would get a pass for never negotiating in good faith but instead seeing the only objective as not fixing the economy but making Obama a one term President. In a word, the the Gregorys and Woodwards were saying that McConnell and company's obstruction would work as only the President has any responsibility for anything that ever goes wrong in the economy even though Congress is who writes the bills and they had not supported his jobs bill in 2011.

    Woodward has ad nauseum repeated the categorical imperative that it's up to the President to "work his will" and if things don't work out it's all his fault. Well, then, why wasn't Mitt Romney elected in a landslide as some lazy pundits actually predicted. Indeed, on narrative repeated in a sizable part of the media was that Obama would either win in a squeaker or Romney in a landslide-because of that Denver debate. So this is what the pundits like Gregory, Brooks, and Woodward were telling during the election.

    Yet, Krugman's very serious people (vsp) are still as self-important and long-winded as ever. The Republican party may not have learned anything by their defeat but neither have the vsp media.

     Brooks was kvetching as usual about the stupidity of Americans in not voting for people who want to decimate the social safety net. Why can't people learn that their pain is a gain for David Brooks and his vsp friends!