It was probably naivety on my part but I can recall being surprised when I learnt that the Republican Party in DC would manage meetings that met weekly which would hash over the media messages of the next week. I can understand Karl Rove doing it in the White House, but this meeting included the media - as opposed to political operatives. Producers from TV, radio and the researchers for op-ed writers would be present at the meeting. This was how the Republican Party managed media discipline and had Americans hearing the same thing over and over no matter what their preferred media for information.

So we have political pundits, or opinion makers, who are little more than performers. I do not know how they can just surrender their conscience in such a manner and say completely opposite things to what they may feel or believe. I don't have the personality to do that kind of thing. I have great difficulty not being me.

So I have issues understanding how political performers like in these videos can just do what they do.

First was the open mic video where Chuck Todd, Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan gave their non-performed opinions. It was honest enough that Noonan decided she had to make a rebuttal to herself and that she didn't really mean what she said when the cameras and mics were supposedly off.

Then there is this video of Republican mouthpieces happily contradicting themselves over a period of time. The Daily Show first made this piece of breathless hypocrisy visible when they did the debate between Governor Bush and President Bush. I suspect to sleep straight in bed at night these people would either need to be amoral or treat it as a performance - and not real. Then again maybe they can surrender their ego, morality and conscience to a group dynamic where consistency and honesty no longer matter.
Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.

Comments
  • adam . # . 1/1
    I think it's a fair point that big chunks of the commentariat are under partisan capture. A term I heard Phil Bobbit use the other day to describe the Archbishop of Canterbury, not necessarily in an insulting way, was "non-elected politicians". Agreed this is peculiar; it may just be my impression but the US and AU seem more prone to it than the UK. Editorialists of this type have a new role of external spin doctor, and spin doctors are a kind of courtesan to democracy.

    So the outbreak of partisan journalist-politicians is a bit disturbing, but I think changing positions over time is really just an occupational hazard of politics in general. As UK MP James Maxton once said, "If you can't ride two horses at once, you have no right to be in the bloody circus."
    Give me utilitiy or give me something slightly better!
    • cam . # . 1/1
      It is probably the cynicism of it in the case of Rove et al where it is ok if their guys are doing it, but not for others. With the spin doctors being part of opinioned media I think it is ok once they are accepted as performers then they just become actors doing their part in the entertainment. Same as most op-ed writers are really trolls trying to double their audience by trolling one lot an echo-chambering the other.
      'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.