PrintMarch 2, 2010
The Smartest Guys in the Room?
I recently read an article by Joe Klein titled "It's Her Party: The Brilliance of Sarah Palin." I assumed it would be the usual anti-Palin screed we've come to expect from the mainstream media, but before I finished the first paragraph I was stunned at the contempt...contempt aimed not only at Governor Palin, but at us, conservative Tea Partiers. Mr. Klein, I'm certain, is so confident in his rhetorical skills that he believes that we'll never catch on to how he feels about non-Obama fans out here. But get a load of phrases such as:
... anti-élitist Tea Party élites ... gathered in suffocating self-righteousness ...
Then again, any sentence that begins with "Most economists" is a license to snore in tea party nation.
A woman who goes to war against the 19-year-old boy who knocked up her daughter and then posed for Playgirl is far more comprehensible to most Americans than deficit spending is.
As a nurse, I've been the target of some overt hate speech. (Try telling a drug-seeker sitting in your ER that "No, the doctor will not give you any Demerol.") Mr. Klein may use bigger, prettier words than the drug-seeker, but the purpose of his language is the same: to belittle and disparage. But why? He can't possibly believe that an article like this will convince anyone to become an Obama-supporter and a Joe Klein fan. In an era where conservatives make up the largest voting bloc in America, why write this?
It's simple. Mr. Klein is really, really angry -- at conservatives. And he's using the only weapons he has -- words -- to lash out like an animal caught in a trap. And the trap Mr. Klein and his fellow journalists are in is obvious.
They got suckered by Barack Obama and the Chicago crowd, and we didn't. Mr. Klein, MS-NBC, the New York Times, and even some conservatives like Peggy Noonan and Christopher Buckley fell for a slick operator. Despite the Ivy League educations and all the access to information, the mainstream media behaved like a high school girl infatuated with the class bad boy. Allow me to illustrate.
How many parents have experienced the horror of meeting their teenage daughter's first love and knowing instantly that this relationship will lead to nothing but tragedy? It's a no-win situation for the parents. If they attempt to explain what a cad their daughter is dating, the lovesick girl won't believe it. If they forbid her to see him again, the teen will most likely defy her parents and may even marry the fellow.
In 2008, Mr. Klein and the media brought Barack Obama over for us to meet. Despite the smooth, teleprompter-enhanced talk of no taxes on the middle class, post-racial healing, and restoring our image in the world, 45% of us didn't like him or believe him, and we knew he was all wrong for America. But just like the unhappy parents, we watched in dread as the majority of voters, cheered on by the mainstream media, went ahead and married him anyway. Fairly quickly after the wedding, it became obvious that President Obama was the big-spending socialized medicine enthusiast our intuition told us he was.
After a year of wedlock, the various reactions of Obama voters are fascinating. True believers (such as MS-NBC and the far-left wing of the Democratic Party) are still in love. Sure, a couple of things drive them crazy, such as the fact the Guantánamo Bay is still open and troops remain in Iraq, but the bloom is still on the Obama rose as far as these supporters are concerned. When President Obama gives a speech telling us that the stimulus bill worked, this bunch actually believes it. Don't bother with facts and statistics; it won't matter to these hopeless romantics.
Independents remind me of the Bernie Madoff victims I've seen interviewed on TV. They realize they got scammed, and their dearest wish is to get even. They're the newlywed who returns home after a few months of marriage, sheepishly admitting how right her parents were. I love these independents. They're the reason Republicans won in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Hell hath no fury like an independent voter scorned.
The mainstream media have had a third reaction to the obvious failure of President Obama. Since their pride won't let them admit that they made a colossally stupid mistake, they turn their ire on those who were correct all along, like the daughter who refuses to speak to her parents even though she realizes her new husband is as big a jerk as they said he was. It must be killing journalists like Joe Klein to watch mechanics, hairdressers, nurses, senior citizens, and millions of others "gather in suffocating self-righteousness" to protest the complete mess that is the Obama presidency. Playing the race card didn't stop the tea parties. Disgusting labels like "teabaggers" only made us more determined. So now we're labeled "the anti-élite Tea Party élites ... living in a certain sort of America: the land of simple truths, where nothing Barack Obama does makes sense." In other words, we're dummies.
The mainstream media gave up a lot for this president. They broke up with John McCain, the steady boyfriend of the press for years. When Sean Hannity raised the alarm about Obama's previous affairs with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, the press quickly took Obama's word that the relationships were long over with, and besides, it was only a couple of dates; it meant absolutely nothing! When the skeptical among us asked about his meager experience and the lack of documentation of his accomplishments, Obama gazed reassuringly at the media with his big brown eyes. And when the press so openly took sides, thus giving up their journalistic integrity, they lost their readers and viewers.
I can't blame Mr. Klein for being angry at us. No one likes hearing her mom say, I told you so! Mark Twain once said, "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." Maybe after four years of Obama, Joe Klein will be astonished at how intelligent the Tea Partiers have become.
Carol Peracchio is a registered nurse.
It's simple. Mr. Klein is really, really angry -- at conservatives. And he's using the only weapons he has -- words -- to lash out like an animal caught in a trap. And the trap Mr. Klein and his fellow journalists are in is obvious.
They got suckered by Barack Obama and the Chicago crowd, and we didn't. Mr. Klein, MS-NBC, the New York Times, and even some conservatives like Peggy Noonan and Christopher Buckley fell for a slick operator. Despite the Ivy League educations and all the access to information, the mainstream media behaved like a high school girl infatuated with the class bad boy. Allow me to illustrate.
How many parents have experienced the horror of meeting their teenage daughter's first love and knowing instantly that this relationship will lead to nothing but tragedy? It's a no-win situation for the parents. If they attempt to explain what a cad their daughter is dating, the lovesick girl won't believe it. If they forbid her to see him again, the teen will most likely defy her parents and may even marry the fellow.
In 2008, Mr. Klein and the media brought Barack Obama over for us to meet. Despite the smooth, teleprompter-enhanced talk of no taxes on the middle class, post-racial healing, and restoring our image in the world, 45% of us didn't like him or believe him, and we knew he was all wrong for America. But just like the unhappy parents, we watched in dread as the majority of voters, cheered on by the mainstream media, went ahead and married him anyway. Fairly quickly after the wedding, it became obvious that President Obama was the big-spending socialized medicine enthusiast our intuition told us he was.
After a year of wedlock, the various reactions of Obama voters are fascinating. True believers (such as MS-NBC and the far-left wing of the Democratic Party) are still in love. Sure, a couple of things drive them crazy, such as the fact the Guantánamo Bay is still open and troops remain in Iraq, but the bloom is still on the Obama rose as far as these supporters are concerned. When President Obama gives a speech telling us that the stimulus bill worked, this bunch actually believes it. Don't bother with facts and statistics; it won't matter to these hopeless romantics.
Independents remind me of the Bernie Madoff victims I've seen interviewed on TV. They realize they got scammed, and their dearest wish is to get even. They're the newlywed who returns home after a few months of marriage, sheepishly admitting how right her parents were. I love these independents. They're the reason Republicans won in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Hell hath no fury like an independent voter scorned.
The mainstream media have had a third reaction to the obvious failure of President Obama. Since their pride won't let them admit that they made a colossally stupid mistake, they turn their ire on those who were correct all along, like the daughter who refuses to speak to her parents even though she realizes her new husband is as big a jerk as they said he was. It must be killing journalists like Joe Klein to watch mechanics, hairdressers, nurses, senior citizens, and millions of others "gather in suffocating self-righteousness" to protest the complete mess that is the Obama presidency. Playing the race card didn't stop the tea parties. Disgusting labels like "teabaggers" only made us more determined. So now we're labeled "the anti-élite Tea Party élites ... living in a certain sort of America: the land of simple truths, where nothing Barack Obama does makes sense." In other words, we're dummies.
The mainstream media gave up a lot for this president. They broke up with John McCain, the steady boyfriend of the press for years. When Sean Hannity raised the alarm about Obama's previous affairs with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, the press quickly took Obama's word that the relationships were long over with, and besides, it was only a couple of dates; it meant absolutely nothing! When the skeptical among us asked about his meager experience and the lack of documentation of his accomplishments, Obama gazed reassuringly at the media with his big brown eyes. And when the press so openly took sides, thus giving up their journalistic integrity, they lost their readers and viewers.
I can't blame Mr. Klein for being angry at us. No one likes hearing her mom say, I told you so! Mark Twain once said, "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." Maybe after four years of Obama, Joe Klein will be astonished at how intelligent the Tea Partiers have become.
Carol Peracchio is a registered nurse.
