Read a Pacific Northwest, liberal perspective on world, national, and local politics. From majestic Redmond, Washington - the Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog.

Friday, July 06, 2007

Hair today

Digby cuts to the heart of the matter, this time in the context of "hair stories" about Democrats:
I know the news media are annoyed by what they see as the bloggers' simplistic analysis of "the political narrative" and I'm sure that most of them do not cover a campaign with such things in mind. But in the daily rush of campaign coverage I think even many of the good ones fail to see how these "tips" and "research" are actually a form of campaign propaganda designed specifically to implant certain subliminal impressions and ideas about candidates which are not actually true, even if the details are factual. (If they are aware of it, then they are all guilty of journalistic malpractice for failing to reveal that in every story they write about these things.)

In keeping with the convoluted modern press definition of fairness they will say that it is up to the Democrats to feed them equally trivial nasty gossip that they can use to illustrate whatever caricatures they wish to convey about their rivals --- then everything will equal out in the end. Indeed, it is the Democrats' failure if they are not good at character assassination and they have no one to blame but themselves. ("Get better smear artists, Democrats, and we'll give you equal time --- but only if we can "verify" that your "tip" is factual. We do have scruples, after all.")
As always, you are heartily encouraged to go read the whole post.

It's all just become so obvious, that if we can continue to get the word out I think voters will start to question how all this works. The puerile will always be part of American politics, but I would gladly have a president who pays $10,000 for a haircut if she or he does a good job being president. As if the Beltway courtiers are so shocked that candidates would need to care about their appearance in an age dominated by mass media shallowness.

Still no word on Fred Thompson's makeup bill.

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