We don’t want to carry the analogy of Ophelia’s madness very far, but we think that maybe Shostakovich is the best background music for the meltdown that has taken place in the MSM. Do you feel it too, that something has come unhinged in the MSM over the last year or so?

The Bush administration began conventionally, with the MSM griping about tax cuts for the rich and the usual blather. 9-11 changed things considerably. Suddenly the MSM had to tamp down their anti-Americanism and pacificism for a while. It must have rankled. There was controversy about heretofore often unnoticed MSM internationalism, like the David Westin comments about the Pentagon being a legitimate target; Johnny Apple’s comparison of Afghanistan as Vietnam two weeks into that conflict was widely noted and ridiculed.

2002 was no better for the MSM, because that was the year in which the Democratic Party sold its soul. There was some pretending in the MSM that things would soon return to normal, such as Paul Krugman’s howler: “in the years ahead Enron, not September 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.” Alas, that was not to be. Despite occasional relapses into military criticism that they quickly had to retreat from, like that of Daschle in March, Democrats reluctantly dragged themselves along in the war.

Things reached their nadir in October 2002, when scores of Democrats joined Republicans in bi-partisan support of authorization of a potential war in Iraq. The anti-war NYT, in its excellent October 3 editorial, “A Time for Debate and Reflection,” sounded, perhaps for the last time, as though the editorial board believed that there were two equal sides in the argument:

No further debate is needed to establish that Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator whose continued effort to build unconventional weapons in defiance of clear United Nations prohibitions threatens the Middle East and beyond. The issue is how Washington and the international community can best eliminate or reduce this danger.

Interestingly, it was, as the NYT reported at the time, the Bush administration that sought a broad-based authorization for war, while the Democrat alternative focused exclusively on WMD, a point soon to be forgotten:

The major difference between the two resolutions is that the version agreed upon by the House and the president today authorizes Mr. Bush to use force to enforce ”all relevant” United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, leaving the White House free to determine what is relevant. In contrast, the Biden-Lugar language specifies that force is authorized to secure the destruction of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction…

Gritting their teeth and hiding their anti-war souls did the Democrats and the MSM no good in the 2002 election; this is what we believe they meant when they said that they “didn’t get their message out.” They didn’t get their message out because they were hiding its anti-war core; what message they did get out appeared emotionally inappropriate (the Wellstone memorial).

We didn’t mean to spend so much time on 2002, but some of those quotes from the NYT were just too juicy to pass over. We think the lessons that the MSM took from the election of 2002 were: (a) a need to sharpen attacks on Bush and Bush policies; and (b) a need to be anti-war while appearing pro-war — after all, trying to look strongly pro-war had come a cropper. It is the failure of this strategy which has driven the MSM mad.

To take the second point first, how to appear pro-war while signaling to the Democrat base the true anti-war feelings. That product has had a name for over thirty years: John Kerry. The anti-war war hero. Kerry may have been a flawed candidate, but he was the archetype of the perfect candidate. Yet Kerry was still a compromise that the head won over the heart, because, though he may have genuinely been on both sides of issues, the base and many in the MSM were not. Kerry was a candidate of concealment, where the true heart of the Democratic Party base was kept under wraps. This is not a formula for mental health.

The second element that drove the MSM mad was the New Media. The MSM’s plan was simple, and it was a good one. Push Kerry as a military hero, blast Bush in parallel terms, and deliver the MSM’s 15 point advantage to the Democrat. So here came the stories: Kerry equals war hero; Bush equals draft dodger — sure-fire MSM winners with an invitation to the better inaugural balls to boot. But those stories do not today bear the titles that were intended for them by the MSM. Today they are known as SwiftBoatVets and Rathergate. The fact that so many in the MSM still fail to acknowledge the validity of the SwiftBoatVets’ criticisms, or admit that the inept Burkett creations are fraudulent, is perhaps the definitive evidence that the MSM have abandoned their core function — reporting the truth — in favor of their ideological mission.

Victory in 2004 could have papered over these dysfunctions of the Democratic Party and the MSM. But victory didn’t happen. In our view this resulted in an uncontrolled outburst of pain and anguish, a cri de coeur beyond rational control. Screw being anything but anti-war! Screw these rightwingers with their Rathergate and their SwiftBoatVets! Frustration had breached the dam of common sense, and the raw and bitter emotions overflowed.

And that has been the story of the last 12 unhinged months in the MSM. The Democrats and the MSM have yelled Bush LIED! nonstop, despite what they said in 2002 (see above) or in the late 90′s. Democrats from Murtha to Pelosi to Dean have called for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. The Democratic Party has become the official Antiwar™ Party of the country with the MSM cheerleading Joe Wilson, Cindy Sheehan, and Scootergate.

Now we are about to enter an election year, and the MSM and their party are trying to walk off the plank back to the ship, since, as the WaPo reports, some fear that “Pelosi is playing into Bush’s hands by suggesting Democrats are the party of a quick pullout — an unpopular position in many of the most competitive House races.”

While the party is divided over the specifics of Iraq policy, most Democratic legislators are slowly coalescing around a political plan, according to lawmakers and party operatives. This would involve setting a broad time frame for drawing down U.S. troops, starting with National Guard and reserve units, internationalizing the reconstruction effort, and blaming Bush for misleading the country into a war without a victory plan.

The aim is to provide the party enough maneuvering room to allow Democrats to adjust their position as conditions in Iraq change — and fix public attention mostly on Bush’s policies rather the details of a Democratic alternative.

Such rationality and fine-tuning a message might be practical politics (however repugnant in a time of war), but is it possible politics in a time in which the Democratic Party base wants its anti-war soul to burst free and soar, and its media messenger has been driven mad with frustration? We think not. The genii is out of the bottle. The madness has been unleashed:

O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck’d the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

To be frank, we too are often consumed with country matters.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 7th, 2005 at 10:19 am and is filed under art, culture, Democrats, General, Left of Left, MSM, New Media, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.