How many days after inauguration will pass before the "progressive" media turn against Obama?
The blind hero-worship continues; witness the Ms. Magazine cover, featured below. Kos and Josh Marshall prove the point. And yet even now, the hagiographers' hearts do not appear to be in it.
I predict that the Lightbringer will get maybe six months, which brings us to June 20, 2009. After that, Kos and Olbermann will start snarking. What's your prediction? When will the great Zeitgeist shift occur?
9 comments:
It's hard to say. The big zeitgeist shift with G-Dub didn't take place until he botched the response to Katrina, and even then the media continued to support the war. But G-Dub used 9/11 and the War on Terra to turn supporting him into an act of patriotism.
Unless there is a major event during Obama's presidency, I expect to see a gradual erosion of support for him.
I think he will be unpopular by the 2010 midterms and the GOP will win seats in the House and Senate. The key question is whether the economy will turn around by 2012.
As far as the media (especially MSNBC) and blogger boiz like kos and WJKM,they won't turn on Obama until it's obvious he's going down in flames, then they'll rush to to lead the parade supporting the Next Big Thing.
I only hope you're right. The worshiping might not continue but I'll be surprised if they ever criticize Obama like they do with real Democrats. He might have to make a massive error in judgment like Bush did with Iraq for the media to turn on him. I think instead the media might turn against Democrats who criticize Obama for courting the right and acting like a Libertarian for the sake of "unity".
Personally, I think Kos and Josh have been paid off in some big way, and I think the cash influction happened a couple years ago - like maybe when Josh moved to New York. Maybe Kos's post at the Cato Institute is part of the deal.
The first place I saw the Clinton 1984 ad was at TPM and Josh was describing it as clever. Well, there is nothing clever about it. It was made by a former roommate of Obama's press secretary and it was well-executed, if ham-fisted, attack on Clinton as a fascist. I wish someone at the time had tracked it's appearance on the net as we did the videos from the advertising executive a few months ago. I think a very interesting provenance would have revealed itself.
Out of curiosity, how many blogs qualify as "major" progressive sites? (By "major" I mean employing several full-time writers ad folks, etc.) As soon as the tracking for their ad revenue starts to seriously fall, because of the economy or whatever, I think that any one of those sites might decide that there could be some money to be made by articulating a contrarian position to their usual reader base.
I remember Kos saying he was withholding his $2300 From Obama's GE find due to his vote on FISA until he made up for it (or something like that). I wondered at the time why he didn't withhold it earlier for Obama flipping on the war, NAFTA, campaign finance, and on and on...I concluded it was a pretense, something he could point to should he be called too soft on Obama.
Lori - Kos has a job at the Cato Institute?!? A self-styled progressive a part of THE Libertarian think-tank?!? Oof.
[What was that you were saying, Joe, about Libertarians being everywhere (and especially around Obama)...?]
Sergei Rostov
Four weeks. Six if it looks like he can take down enough fellow Democrats to make giving him a graceful exit worthwhile.
I predict a full-on brand-spanking new President by June 14, 2009, who is neither Barack Obama or Joe Biden.
I truly wonder if they'll evah change their minds or drop their support. The delusion is that deep.
If you are looking for an Andrew Sullivan style mea culpa, my guess would be not at all. They have gone too far down the path they once used to rail the MSM for. Not saying that they wont moderate the instances of outright shilling for Obama but I don't expect it to be a fast or complete about face. Maybe they decide tunnel vision is where it's at and march right down the path of the MSM. Would that make them the new MSM?
Over the last 6-9 months or so I have essentially abandoned reading a large number of the "progressive" blogs I used read on a regular bases. They are no longer useful sources of critical reporting. As most of the heavy hitting, high traffic, progressive sites came up in the anti-Bush era(and are pretty much defined by it), I don't expect them to be able to remake themselves as credible critics of a Dem administration. Granted there are a number of notable exceptions to this.
alternet, glenn greenwald, and antiwar still tend to be spot on. While not at all 2nd rate in content or critical analysis, they are 2nd tier as far as traffic and profile in the progressive blogosphere.
I wonder if this could be the beginning of the end of the first generation of on-line progressive blogosphere. If so I expect their to be a large, and possible long, void before a new generation comes of age.
Where would the constituency for a new generation even come from? Neocon or even paleocon Reps are out(Bush has sealed their fate). A marriage of the Kucinich left and Ron Paul right, not in this lifetime.
-vividvew
>I predict a full-on brand-spanking new President by June 14, 2009, who is neither Barack Obama or Joe Biden.
Yea, so you must be smoking something really strong. Bush set the bar so high for impeachment that it would be basically impossible in our lifetimes to impeach for any reason. This was the primary reason I have always thought that we MUST impeach Bush. Short of finding out Obama is a closet homosexual with a predilection for young boys, he will be here for at least the next four years.
-vividvew
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