If you hadn't used 'Indeed' immediately after quoting yourself, this small-town denizen might've been interested in picking up a copy of your latest when it comes out.

That millionaire New York columnists can claim not to be elitists or claim some empathy with ordinary people is the real crime.

But I think Obama was wrong.

Small towns have huge advantages over cities. We forget that small town people have houses worth 100,000, yet practically no crime and a relatively high degree of gentility and cohesion. With an $800 a year mortgage I would go out and buy a $40,000 stretch cab pickup - but with a $300,000 house, 'elite' city people might have actually less disposable income than 'folk' from the country.

I hail from Wyoming, and it has some of the highest rates of spending per student on public schools - and zero gang violence - at least when I was a kid 20 years ago.

Even in political terms, lets face it, rural areas are over-represented because of the Senate and Electoral College. You have to win the rural areas over to win.

OK, I said I was leaving, but Elvis, have you been back since leaving 20 years ago?

I can't speak for Wyoming, but rural Missouri ain't what it used to be ... used to be you could run your truck into the ditch on Saturday night, walk or hitch home, and get the wife to help you pick it up Sunday afternoon after church. Now you've gotta worry that your windshield's gonna get busted out before then by a bunch of ne'er-do-wells hopped on that meth.

With the Ridicule comparison in mind, one could only wonder who will be the fortunate one decades from now to urinate on David Brooks's lap in his days of senility.

Hey Michael:

Any insight into Stephanopolous in college? Was there any overlap between you guys and Obama at Columbia?

Hey Michael, I don't have anything much to add. I just wanted to say that you're spot on, and more generally that you're the best thing going on tpmcafe these days. No offense to the other frontpagers, but you are consistently enjoyable to read and usually insightful. Keep up the good work.

"Believe it or not, I have plenty of neighbors here in Centre Country, Pennsylvania (yes, we spell it "centre," because that spelling goes better with chardonnay- and if I get my way we'll put an accent over the e, too) who vote the way they do because they sincerely believe that abortion is the single most important issue facing the country. And as Stuart Hall has argued for years, it's just not a good idea, as a theoretical or a practical matter, to go around assuming you know what people ought to believe."

Do your neighbors in Centre Country, Pennsylvania go around assuming that other people ought to believe that abortion is the single most important issue facing the country?

Of course they do. That's what democracy is, man. We all have varying opinions about the future course we'd like to see our nation follow, and we fight to persuade others about the correctness of our opinions and the incorrectness of our opponents'. No one particular ideology holds a monopoly on the belief in its own correctness, just as no politician of any political stripe has ever run on the platform of "Here's what I believe is best for our country, but, y'know, I'm probably wrong about all this."

Everyone running for office believes that he or she is correct and that his/her opponents (and those who support said opponents) are off-base. It's just that the candidate on the left is, for some reason, the only one who's typically attacked for it. Some day I'd like to know why that is. But whatever the reason, whenever I see a candidate (again, usually the left-most one) questioned for seeming assured of his/her own correctness on an issue, I take it that the questioner is unable to effectively critique the candidate on the merits of the issue itself, and so has retreated to the much more facile critique of the candidate's certainty with regard to that issue. Feh.

Speaking for myself, I don't begrudge your Centre Country neighbors for assuming they know what I ought to believe about abortion, just as I don't begrudge John McCain for assuming he knows what I ought to believe about abortion. Rather, I begrudge your Centre Country neighbors and John McCain for advocacy of policies that would abridge the rights of my loved ones to pursue a particular medical procedure from a licensed physician if they so choose, demoting said rights below the rights of a two-celled zygote.

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

So, if I'm getting your drift, you think that people have beliefs and desires that are not in their own self-interest in part because of the machinations of "the media" who are stooges or accomplices of the corporate elite.

No, Andrew. You're not getting my drift. But I appreciate your patience with me after all these months!

But I promise you I felt precisely the same way last year when the media were convulsed by earnest discussions of Hillary's cleavage and in 1993, when the nation rose as one in outrage over her husband's haircut and how it cost taxpayers $5 million while bringing all air traffic in the United States to a standstill.

Heh-heh...but not anymore, right? "Fuck that Skank! She's been mean to my candidate! She's not playing fair! I'm appalled!" ;^}

The level of chattering is directly proportional to the decadence of the commentator

Nail meet hammer.

Nice, Berube.

The courtiers are a spectacle of gross self love, as made flesh by Gibson’s incessant moaning about capital gains tax juxtaposed by his constant harping that Obama would not disown Wright.

Gibson was outraged that Obama dares - -
1)refusing to disown his pastor.
2)and claims only a passing acquaintance with his neighbor and won’t apologize that he lives in the same area as Ayers
3)and won’t wear a lapel pin
4)but dares, DARES to think he’ll tax the rich and do social good in America.

In the minds of Stephithecocklupus, Gibson, Russert Pumkinhaid, David Dances with Rove Gregory and the one and only Tweety and Dobbs and the whole stable at Fux Noise, these are the main issues.

I never thought it was that complicated. I thought it was more the case that a happy few got chosen (chosen!!!1!one!) from the multitudes of struggling small town reporters and Harvard and Yale grads who think of themselves as scrappy small town reporters to have dinner with Katherine Graham and the Bradlees and live in million dollar houses and meet all the biggest power players and become household names.

And being people, they want to believe that they really earned it, and that the people around them are good and nice and earned their place in what Gloria Borger calls "the political class" too. And being wealthy, they are the sort of people Carlyle and Burke warned about a century and a half ago - people with all the power and wealth of nobility, but without the training of noblesse oblige - they don't like to be reminded that a lot of other clever and deserving people don't get the big nod. They want to believe in meritocracy, and Republican ideology assures them that all wealth is earned and all authority is wise and all power is honest and that nothing changed after Ecclesiastes 9:11.

So their reporting is always done to bolster their own sense of self-merit. Republicans feed that, Democrats challenge it, and they swat away accordingly.

But then, I'm just a provincial rube who only bowls in the 80's, so wtf do I know?

Question is why do the happy few get chosen? Is it more random than intentional? The luck of the draw?

But I agree. Once you are established, you have a vested interest in staying that way. Take a look at what happened to Phil Donehue. He was established but lost his position because he refused to delude himself or others about what was happening. His show was--from what I understand--one with the highest rating for that time slot at MSNBC (was it?).

So it is NOT that these people have much of a choice. Given that they have not much of a choice they self-delude themselves into believing that they are doing the right thing. Others, might not accomplish this self delusion and turn either cynical or get out of the business.

Perhaps in saying "they have no choice" I was overstating the matter. They have no choice if they want to remain in the position they are in.

I was not making a moral point but a psychological one. rb6 you might think that you would choose to take the year’s earnings, get out and invest in the market or something. But how do you know what you would do?

The problem is there is nothing particularly nefarious about the people who occupy these positions. As I was trying to explain, they are not genetically evil people destined to occupy such unsavory positions.
They are humans facing personal choices, and it is part of human nature to maintain a privileged position if you have one.

Not trying to be an apologist for Chris Mathews. I’m just saying that Mathews became who he is because he had ambition and so he learned to play the game . We can write a novel “The Transformation of Mathew”.

I myself have foresworn ambition. I make enough to get by. Don't want to occupy the limelight. And I'm glad I chose that route. When I see Mathews' agitated ranting and what he in fact has become, I want no part of it. But maybe I have “false consciousness too”. Maybe we all do. What is “true consciousness anyway” is it an obvious thing we can all agree on or is it a hopelessly muddled concept.

"Courtiers" is just a little hard to buy because there's no objective incentive for all the fawning they do over Republicans.

As I commented above, incentive mechanisms have included: wingnut welfare (e.g., the Kagans, the Powerliners), subsidized right-wing media (the NY Post and W Times), direct promotion by senior corporate execs (Matthews, Russert). Michael points out that these mechanism don't explain all the Villagers and wankers: he mentions Joe Klein and Richard Cohen; I guess David Broder and Maureen Dowd would be a couple more. These are people who would call themselves "moderates" or "centrists", and don't obviously have the motivations I mentioned, but whose commentary somehow very often supports Republican narratives.

I think there may be some indirect, secondary motivations working for the Villagers, such as an attraction to the group with the most money ("Who has the best parties?"; "Which campaign serves the best snacks?"). Also, it's pretty obvious which opinions are likely to get you TV exposure, and which opinions will not. I guess these motivations could be put under the "Courtier" label.

Michael, I think you're right about how we're not just dealing with a corporate media. I think we're not even just dealing with courtiers, though there's a lot of that, too.

Media "journalists" are part of the entertainment industry, and their job is to tell stories. The trouble is, the only story they know is Macho Sue.

Kit Whitfield explains:

While Mary Sue is a fictional character who bends the universe around herself with her amazing specialness, Macho Sue bends the universe around his manhood. ... When thwarted, he tends to be affronted as well as frustrated, in a way that suggests neither he nor the narrative think it right that anyone but him should ever get their way. The story tends to throw straw men at him by way of obstacles, but they're never shown as equally masculine, and thus are without any heroism of their own. Macho Sue is emotional, but with such an assumption of gendered authority that nobody questions the manliness - in the rightful sense of 'adulthood' - of his behaviour.

If love means never having to say you're sorry, being Macho Sue means the whole of reality loves you. Typically, Macho Sue's storyline follows a certain trajectory: he begins by acting egregiously, picking or provoking fights and causing problems. However much the ensuing difficulties can be laid at his door, Macho Sue is not about to apologise, in any way. So the problems continue - only to be salvaged by some immense reversals that give the impression that he was right all along. The man he insulted turns out, suddenly, to be a bad guy.

We need people like you, professional story-looker-atters. What story are they telling? What story *could* they be telling? What would it take for them to tell a different story?