Krugman has a great piece about the Sado-Monetarists in the EU.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/the-sadomonetarists-of-basel/
It's a great name and it sums it up succinctly. However, while that sums up the Very Serious People of the monetary world, what about what we're seeing from the VSP of the political world? This week, Maureen Dowd's media has outdone itself, that Politico piece on Monday was a new low even for Politico.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/dc-turns-on-obama-91386.html
Just like the Sado-Monetarists can never get enough austerity, the Beltway media can never get enough scandal. David Atkins sums their mindset up well: middle school cafeteria culture. What's laughable is the idea that they care about the public good-with all the lectures they give the President on their Green Lantern Theories of Presidential Leadership, I wish they'd figure out how to do their jobs.
As Atkins notes, there's this conceit the media has that it can topple a President. Obama has wronged them and they will now bring him down-like they did Cllinton; except they didn't. In that ghastly Politico piece, it was claimed that the Beltway press has had enough of the President's "lectures." In truth they are the ones giving the lectures and their pique is that he has paid insufficient attention to them. As Atkins points out, Clinton ignored them too and it sure never hurt his approval ratings.
Meanwhile, Allen and Vandehei seem convinced that the backbiters in the cocktail circuit have some extraordinary power to damage the standing of Presidents. They don't, actually, though they like to pretend they do.
Nor was it the Beltway Press that harmed George W. Bush's reputation. For the most part, the press treated Dubya with kid gloves if not fawning adulation well into his second term. What killed the Bush Administration was the weight of the horrifically immoral invasion of Iraq, the utterly botched effort in Afghanistan, the attempt to privatize Social Security, and an array of real criminal scandals that should by all rights have sent a number of Bush cabinet officials to prison, and others to the Hague. (Edit: also, of course, Katrina. How could I have forgotten?) Those things have a way of dragging down a President's approval rating with or without the help of the Mean Girls of D.C.
Their town:
Message: they care. About themselves.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/the-sadomonetarists-of-basel/
It's a great name and it sums it up succinctly. However, while that sums up the Very Serious People of the monetary world, what about what we're seeing from the VSP of the political world? This week, Maureen Dowd's media has outdone itself, that Politico piece on Monday was a new low even for Politico.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/dc-turns-on-obama-91386.html
Just like the Sado-Monetarists can never get enough austerity, the Beltway media can never get enough scandal. David Atkins sums their mindset up well: middle school cafeteria culture. What's laughable is the idea that they care about the public good-with all the lectures they give the President on their Green Lantern Theories of Presidential Leadership, I wish they'd figure out how to do their jobs.
As Atkins notes, there's this conceit the media has that it can topple a President. Obama has wronged them and they will now bring him down-like they did Cllinton; except they didn't. In that ghastly Politico piece, it was claimed that the Beltway press has had enough of the President's "lectures." In truth they are the ones giving the lectures and their pique is that he has paid insufficient attention to them. As Atkins points out, Clinton ignored them too and it sure never hurt his approval ratings.
Meanwhile, Allen and Vandehei seem convinced that the backbiters in the cocktail circuit have some extraordinary power to damage the standing of Presidents. They don't, actually, though they like to pretend they do.
This is a dangerous — albeit familiar — place for a second-term president. Once the dogs are released, they bark, they bite and it takes a very long time to calm them down. Bill Clinton got hit early and often, and George W. Bush never really recovered from it.Bill Clinton survived his entire eight years with remarkably high approval ratings, including throughout the trumped up impeachment. There were a lot of progressive policy reasons to be unhappy with President Clinton, but that's not why Beltway courtiers had a problem with him. The D.C. mosquitoes were upset that Clinton wasn't one of them, and they made sure he knew about it. Not that it mattered. Bill Clinton, for all his personal and policy warts, brushed them off nearly effortlessly.
Nor was it the Beltway Press that harmed George W. Bush's reputation. For the most part, the press treated Dubya with kid gloves if not fawning adulation well into his second term. What killed the Bush Administration was the weight of the horrifically immoral invasion of Iraq, the utterly botched effort in Afghanistan, the attempt to privatize Social Security, and an array of real criminal scandals that should by all rights have sent a number of Bush cabinet officials to prison, and others to the Hague. (Edit: also, of course, Katrina. How could I have forgotten?) Those things have a way of dragging down a President's approval rating with or without the help of the Mean Girls of D.C.
Again, this is middle school cafeteria culture and they don't care a whit about things that actually matter, like the fact that we now have over 800,000 federal workers out of work thanks to the sequester on furloughs or all the others hurt by the sequester.
Digby, herself, puts it well: think of the Beltway media as a village who is upset that they're Very Serious Advice has been ignored and demands retribution. The villagers will not be ignored!
When Establishment Washingtonians of all persuasions gather to support their own, they are not unlike any other small community in the country.
On this evening, the roster included Cabinet members Madeleine Albright and Donna Shalala, Republicans Sen. John McCain and Rep. Bob Livingston, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, PBS's Jim Lehrer and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, all behaving like the pals that they are. On display was a side of Washington that most people in this country never see. For all their apparent public differences, the people in the room that night were coming together with genuine affection and emotion to support their friends -- the Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt and his wife, CNN's Judy Woodruff, whose son Jeffrey has spina bifida.
But this particular community happens to be in the nation's capital. And the people in it are the so-called Beltway Insiders -- the high-level members of Congress, policymakers, lawyers, military brass, diplomats and journalists who have a proprietary interest in Washington and identify with it.
They call the capital city their "town."
And their town has been turned upside down.
Their town:
"This is a community in all kinds of ways," says ABC correspondent Cokie Roberts, whose parents both served in Congress. She is concerned that people outside Washington have a distorted view of those who live here. "The notion that we are some rarefied beings who breathe toxic air is ridiculous. . . . When something happens everybody gathers around. . . . It's a community of good people involved in a worthwhile pursuit. We think being a worthwhile public servant or journalist matters."
"This is our town," says Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the first Democrat to forcefully condemn the president's behavior. "We spend our lives involved in talking about, dealing with, working in government. It has reminded everybody what matters to them. You are embarrassed about what Bill Clinton's behavior says about the White House, the presidency, the government in general."
Muffie Cabot, who as Muffie Brandon served as social secretary to President and Nancy Reagan, regards the scene with despair. "This is a demoralized little village," she says. "People have come from all over the country to serve a higher calling and look what happened. They're so disillusioned. The emperor has no clothes. Watergate was pretty scary, but it wasn't quite as sordid as this."
NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell adds a touch of neighborly concern. "We all know people who have been terribly damaged personally by this," she says. "Young White House aides who have been saddled by legal bills, longtime Clinton friends. . . . There is a small-town quality to the grief that is being felt, an overwhelming sadness at the waste of the nation's time and attention, at the opportunities lost."
Message: they care. About themselves.
Bear in mind that the President condemned here is Clinton not Obama. Now, you always hear that Obama failed to "Do a Clinton"-that Clinton unlike Obama understood Green Lantern Theory (GLT). Yet, they kicked him in the teeth just as they are now kicking the President in the teeth. All this praise of Clinton is only to hurt Obama with; now we see Hillary coming under attack again, underscoring that point.
It's actually interesting to do this-put quotes of what the media is saying about Obama now next to what they said in 1998. In that vein, Quinn's article is worth reading.
Just remember having the spoon to gag yourself with as you listen to the sanctimony of all these VSP.
"With some exceptions, the Washington Establishment is outraged by the president's behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The polls show that a majority of Americans do not share that outrage. Around the nation, people are disgusted but want to move on; in Washington, despite Clinton's gains with the budget and the Mideast peace talks, people want some formal acknowledgment that the president's behavior has been unacceptable. They want this, they say, not just for the sake of the community, but for the sake of the country and the presidency as well."
"In addition to the polls and surveys, this disconnect between the Washington Establishment and the rest of the country is evident on TV and radio talk shows and in interviews and conversations with more than 100 Washingtonians for this article. The din about the scandal has subsided in the news as politicians and journalists fan out across the country before tomorrow's elections. But in Washington, interest remains high."
As far as this Village is concerned the only thing you can do is go after them on failing their jobs. This is clearly the core of their insecurities.
That's where we are at the end of the day. The only way to fight the Village is with facts. It takes awhile but they do finally win. Krugman notes that he chose a good week to not be around.
"I picked a good week to be away — and I am still away, mostly, although playing a bit of hooky on the notebook right now. For it has been the week of OBAMA SCANDALS, nonstop.
Except it seems that there weren’t actually any scandals, just the usual confusion and low-level mistakes that happen all the time, in any administration."
"Does the evaporation of the scandals matter? I don’t know. Unfortunately, I remember the early Clinton years, when ridiculous stuff — restructuring at the White House travel office, for God’s sake, and a money-losing land deal — led to years of front-page headlines, endless investigations,and nothing at all in the form of proven Clinton wrongdoing. If the press decide that scandals are going to be the topic, the absence of actual scandals may not matter."
"Oh, and the ongoing disaster of economic policy? Boooring."
P.S. For more on the Beltway's junior high culture see this book that's coming out in the Summer. The name should be enough to convince you it's a must read: This Town: How it Works in Suck-up City.
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