Aug. 13, 2006
The Problem With Pundits
The Nation: Why They Didn't Foresee Joe Lieberman's Loss
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Play CBS Video Video Lieberman Has Uphill Climb Maurice Carroll, director at Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, talks about Ned Lamont's win in Connecticut and the uphill battle Lieberman has ahead of him as an independent.
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Video Sen. Lieberman Is War Casualty Sen. Joe Lieberman was defeated in Connecticut's Democratic Senate primary in what became a referendum on his support for the war in Iraq. Trish Regan reports.
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Video Impact Of Lieberman's Defeat It now looks like the Iraq war could be the key issue in the battle for control of Congress. As Jim Axelrod reports, candidates on both sides are staking out their positions.
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Many pundits were rooting for Sen. Joe Lieberman to beat challenger Ned Lamont. (AP)
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Interactive Campaign 2006 Complete coverage and analysis of Senate and key House races, plus gubernatorial elections.
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Interactive History Of Press Freedom Follow the evolving struggles over press freedom in the United States.
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Interactive Iraq: 4 Years Later The conflict wears on as the nation struggles to rebuild.
Equally far-fetched is the assumption that a candidate in Connecticut will impact races in the other 49 states. Since when do voters in Oregon, for instance, vote in retaliation for whom citizens in Arizona elect in their primary? Perhaps that was true when the renegade candidate was KKK honcho and Republican David Duke. But Lamont is a multi-millionaire and fourth-generation Harvard graduate. Why would voters in Tennessee be concerned about Lamont, let alone care about him? There's absolutely no proof that the choice Connecticut Democrats made Tuesday is going to influence elections around the country. No proof, that is, other than the fact that the Republican National Committee's Ken Mehlman says it's so.
Aside from the hollow analysis, what accounted for the pundits' unusually hysterical hyperbole?
Part of it was that the pundits took the race personally. Meaning, they really like Joe Lieberman.
If nothing else, that kind of blatant, public back-rubbing helped draw back the curtain on a dirty little Beltway secret that news consumers aren't supposed to know: Journalists go easy on politicians they like. Meaning, if reporters and pundits like a politician on a person level than that politician is rewarded with glowing campaign coverage (i.e., Sen. John McCain). But if reporters and pundits despise a politician on a personal level, that politician is penalized with blatantly dishonest campaign coverage (i.e., Vice President Al Gore).
What also drove a lot of the animus was the growing tension between the Beltway insiders and the bloggers, who continue to grab more political authority at the expense of ink-and-paper pundits who are scrambling to maintain theirs. It was no coincidence that Brooks and Broder and Klein and the crew at The New Republic have all in recent months taken public whacks at the progressive netroots, trying hard to undermine them. For instance, Brooks dismissed Daily Kos's Markos Moulitsas as the "Keyboard Kingpin," while Klein proudly announced on CNN, "I bow to nobody in my disdain for bloggers." For the last few years mainstream media pundits and reporters chuckled over the bloggers' dismal 0-16 streak in backing candidates in previous campaigns. But the Lieberman stunner (stunning, in that four months ago nobody thought Lamont could prevail), changes everything. As of right now, the bloggers not only have juice, but represent perhaps the most potent force in progressive politics. You don't think that scares Beltway insiders who for decades saw themselves as the de facto king makers?
Revealing, too, is the fact that MSM pundits and reporters don't focus on Lieberman's arrogant decision to abandon the Democratic party in order to hang onto his seat in November by running as an independent. In fact, Bloomberg News's Al Hunt simply referenced Lieberman's me-first strategy as an "insurance policy." (Imagine if every political loser took out an "insurance policy.") On Tuesday, Newsweek.com wrote admiringly about Lieberman's decision to "soldier on with an independent bid for his Senate seat" where "he is free to be himself," while New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin cheered, "Lieberman's decision to stay in the race as an independent is the right one." Pundits who normally revere process and pounce on politicians who try to selfishly change the rules in the middle of game, simply shrug their shoulders at Lieberman's stunning campaign vanity.
But what I think is essential to understanding the Lieberman media phenomena is that, for the most part, the pundits who assailed Lamont's rise during the campaign were the same ones who signed off on the disastrous war in Iraq and now appear spooked that voters in Connecticut finally decided to hold Lieberman, the de facto Democratic co-sponsor of the invasion, responsible for that foreign policy debacle. They're spooked because for the last three-plus years there's been something of a gentleman's agreement that nobody inside the Beltway, whether at the White House, Congress, the Pentagon, or inside the corporate media world, has been asked to pay any sort of professional price for backing the disaster that is Iraq. But suddenly Democrats in the Nutmeg state have decided enough's enough. That's not a trend Beltway insiders want to see spread nationally, which is why so many pundits were eager to marginalize Lamont and his anti-war backers as "crazies" and "elitist" "bomb throwers."
The problem for pundits is that the November elections will offer a lot more referendums on the war — and nervous name-calling might not be enough to stem that tide.
By Eric Boehlert
Reprinted with permission from The Nation.
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