Digby Rules

After quoting some National Journal shit saying the media's excited to cover Democrats cuz they're "messier, louder, looser-lipped, more colorful, newsier, and, for the media class's purposes, more fun," Digby responds.

Here are, basically, the National Journal points, courtesy of one William Powers:
• "Running wild. Generally speaking, Republicans have an executive temperament; they like order and control. Democrats, in contrast, are legislative beasts."
• "Infighting...Even today, they often seem more interested in warring among themselves than against the other party. It's happy talk and hugs right now, but just wait a few months."
• "Who am I? While Republicans seem to know basically who they are and what their purpose is, modern Democrats are filled with doubt."
• "Tough love. Journalists are more aggressive under Democratic rule...When Democrats are in power, there's a huge incentive for reporters not to appear too sympathetic and thereby confirm the old liberal-bias charge."
• "Duck soup. Democrats are always on the edge of comedy. There's a madcap, Marx Brothers quality to this party."

Digby writes:

What can I say? This is what we are dealing with and there's no getting around it. These are not serious people, they are immature fools. And apparently, they are proud of it.

We have had a president for the last six years who is so stupid he can barely eat and breathe and who has single handedly destroyed more than 50 years of American leadership in the world. The American people have spoken loudly and clearly and have elected a new congress to provide some checks and balances to his reign of incompetence and executive power-mongering. They did not elect Democrats to provide the puerile putzes of the DC press corps with entertainment.

If these blindered fools can't see how many real stories are now potentially theirs for the taking, they should get out of the business. This could be the most fertile time for investigative reporting since Watergate --- Republicans are talking out of school for the first time in six long years. And the Democrats have the investigative tools to get to information that's been hidden. It should be great moment for DC journalism if DC journalism actually existed. Instead we are already back in the truthiness and fake news business, which they do very badly (particularly since we now have professional comedians who do truthiness and fake news far more entertainingly than these witless bores could ever hope to.)

The shallow cliches in that article are not just lighthearted good times. They illustrate the narrative that cost Al Gore an election and motivated an eight year media withchunt against President Clinton. But it's no joke, which events of the last six years should have pounded home to every person who works in the journalism business. This sophomoric approach to covering politics was largely responsible for the empowerment of the most destructive political leadership in American history.

And apparently they haven't learned a damned thing.