Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Connect the Dots . . .

John Hindraker can't understand why "why voters haven't seemed to be repelled by the Dems' wacky left wing" represented by Moveon.org.

So I'll help him out. No normal person cares about Moveon's "betray us" ad or about any of the other things that rightwingers are frothing about these days. I have seen no evidence that the public is shifting towards supporting the war or are showing any great faith in Saint Petraeus.

UPDATE Paul Krugman on Saint Petraeus:

To a remarkable extent, punditry has taken a pass on whether Gen. Petraeus’s picture of the situation in Iraq is accurate. Instead, it was all about the theatrics – about how impressive he looked, how well or poorly his Congressional inquisitors performed. And the judgment you got if you were watching most of the talking heads was that it was a big win for the administration – especially because the famous MoveOn ad was supposed to have created a scandal, and a problem for the Democrats.

. . .

But here’s the thing: new polls by CBS and Gallup show that the Petraeus testimony had basically no effect on public opinion: Americans continue to hate the war, and want out. The whole story about how the hearing had changed everything was a pure figment of the inside-the-Beltway imagination.

What I found striking about the whole thing was the contempt the pundit consensus showed for the public – it was, more or less, “Oh, people just can’t resist a man in uniform.” But it turns out that they can; it’s the punditocracy that can’t.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Moveon.org may finance some commercials, but very few conservatives ever visit their site and read the loony lefties in their own feverswamp environment. People simply dont know how wacky they are............

Anonymous said...

Where would the modern right be without a strawman to knock down. Are Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck the only people who take Move On.org seriously? Only if they need ratings points for their Ten Minute Hate.

Anonymous said...

It's true. Most of politics in modern government is much like student government. A small group of people really care and bitch about everyone else not caring enough and getting involved. Everyone else is confused why they're so excited about such insignificant things and just worry about a few bread and butter issues: taxes, the economy, whether we'll be attacked by terrorists, whether we'll tarry on fruitlessly in Iraq, whether one or the other side is acting dishonorably, etc.