I’ve been watching cable news tonight. It’s a habit I have been trying to kick, and I am having some success. But tonight, I watched some CNN and some MSNBC. The quality of the news presentation is still putrid, but there is something new afoot. Gone is the swagger of the right-wing’s pundits and talking head hacks. It’s not just the White House staff and chief-of-staff Andrew Card who are burnt out…it’s their chattering class, too.
Kate O’Bierne, Ed Rollins, Bay Buchanan, they aren’t on point, they aren’t even using talking points, there is no message discipline at all.
Chris Matthews asked Ed Rollins what he would do if he was hired to put the broken pieces of this administration back together. Ed said there was nothing he could do because Bush wouldn’t listen to him.
Kate O’Bierne tried to explain away a Pew poll that said:
The single word most frequently associated with George W. Bush today is “incompetent,”and close behind are two other increasingly mentioned descriptors: “idiot” and “liar.”
Her heart really wasn’t in it. She tried to blame it all on Iraq, as if that was some kind of excuse for being considered an incompetent, idiotic, liar.
I’m not sure how Rove’s outfit lost its ability to dominate the terms of cable news debate, but I see no signs of Rove’s hand in tonight’s cable news. It’s like the Establishment will no longer return his calls. I think Feingold’s stand has kinda shook Washington out of its stupor. Now they are just acting confused.
Tweety looked at the polls that showed a plurality of 48% have a negative view of the President and think he is a liar. He shook his head, said he’d checked the poll numbers three times because he couldn’t believe it. He thought the American people loved George Bush, because of 9/11. But more independents want Bush impeached than want him censured.
To be sure, the media isn’t exactly picking up on the strength of Feingold’s position. They are more stunned by the cratering of support for the President. But the background for all of this is that everyone knows Feingold is correct, no one really considers him as the type of politician that does cheap stunts, or grandstands for effect. Everyone knows Feingold is a principled and deeply serious politician. No one has the heart to attack him. No one really wants to come to terms and deal with the implications of Feingold being dead right. But they know it’s there, and then they look at seriousness of the polls.
Bush is tottering. I won’t be all that surprised if, if the Dems suddenly begin to coalesce around Feingold, that the whole apple cart might go over.
