Connelly on the D.C. media bubble

Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly writes about how the Beltway punditcrats have sold Barack Obama short, in a way, and you really have to love this:

My sense is that the "punditocracy" in Washington, D.C., read each other, interview each other and quote each other too much for the country's good.

We saw, in the Scooter Libby trial, the gossipy chumminess of top Bush administration officials and what Canada's former U.S. ambassador Allan Gotlieb used to call "high press."

The approach, highly effective, deployed by veteran D.C. hands in the Bush administration was revealed for all to see: Treat these people like they are important insiders, and they'll be in the palm of your hand.

And that is the heart of the issue, when it comes to examining the national press as an institution. They live in their own world. Their cocktail wienies are served on a bed of romaine with a side of gossip - while working families' beanie weenies come in a can and are served as dinner on soccer night.

And people complain about Hollywood. The Beltway media establishment is worse than Hollywood in many ways - for instance, box office disasters don't tend to start ill advised wars that get courageous Americans and innocent Iraqis killed.