Media: Still Looking For A Clue And A Spine

Dan Froomkin at HuffPo discusses how your elite political media have yet to report on The Big Political Story of 2012 (actually, we think it's The Big Political Story of the Past 20 Years):

"Post-mortems of contemporary election coverage typically include regrets about horserace journalism, he-said-she-said stenography, and the lack of enlightening stories about the issues.

"But according to longtime political observers Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, campaign coverage in 2012 was a particularly calamitous failure, almost entirely missing the single biggest story of the race: Namely, the radical right-wing, off-the-rails lurch of the Republican Party, both in terms of its agenda and its relationship to the truth."

In addition to the insights of Mann and Ornstein, readers of Charles P. Pierce's sublime blog see an example of media craven cluelessness every Monday. As he often does, Pierce focuses a light on serial obfuscator of truth, "Press the Meat" host "Dancin' Dave" Gregory who, week in and week out, aids and abets the continuing decline of political discourse in America:

"But, of course, the topic of the weekend, the topic of all our weekends these days, was pain. Who would bring it? How much would there have to be? And, of course, how to explain to the country that granny-starving is a patriotic act that will keep us from becoming Greece. There's no better place for that kind of talk that Dancin' Dave's Disco Dance Party. Surprisingly, some actual Democrats wandered into the studio this week — OK, Dick Durbin, but any old port etc., and god, did I need some old port by the end of this. — and there was some tepid push-back against starving all the grannies all together. The Dancin' Master never got rolling because his show turned quickly into Camp Runamuck. First, though, there was some prevaricatin' to be done from Rep. Kevin McCarthy, noted for taking his marching orders from mediocre Ben Affleck movies, although Allen West, his partner in comedy gold, will not be returning to Congress, which is why people have been seen removing padding from the walls."

Favorite line? "Let us begin with the Dancin' Master, who hosted Rick Santorum on the overtime part of the program, and sat there like a pile of leaves while Santorum... accused the president of being soft on Sharia law." (our emphasis) As long as the Dancin' Daves of the media are more concerned with staying on the Georgetown cocktail circuit than staying on The Big Political Story of the Past 20 Years, we're in for more of the same.

BONUS: Here's more, on the "winning the morning" Internet side.