Thursday, January 21, 2010

Through Ideological Glasses

Here's Andrew Sullivan on the Conventional Wisdom surrounding this week's Republican win in Taxachussetts:

Here's why it's hard to see anything positive coming out of this debacle. Stephen Bainbridge, an intelligent man and one of the few conservatives who also found Bush and Cheney appalling, can write this:

Obama and the Congressional Democrats (especially in the House) governed for the last year as though the median voter is a Daily Kos fan.

This must come as some surprise to most Daily Kos fans. But if one had traveled to Mars and back this past year and read this statement, what would you assume had happened? I would assume that the banks had been nationalized, the stimulus was twice as large, that single-payer healthcare had been pushed through on narrow majority votes, that card-check had passed, that an immigration amnesty had been legislated, that prosecutions of Bush and Cheney for war crimes would be underway, that withdrawal from Afghanistan would be commencing, that no troops would be left in Iraq, that Larry Tribe was on the Supreme Court, that DADT and DOMA would be repealed, and so on.

But when even a sane and honest person like Bainbridge has lapsed into believing the FNC mantra, you realize that ideology has simply altered our understanding of reality.



Hat tip to Digby.

4 comments:

Göran Koch-Swahne said...

Indeed. And it will be a rocky way ahead!

Leonard said...

Yes, there is now, once again, a large number of sick cookies (mostly of the same race) who have assured one another that is perfectly natural, er, honorable to be vile, selfish, greedy, and seemingly righteous human beings while exploiting and demoralizing others who may be different (in most any way)...the worst is yet to come because these demented blowhards have guns...the good news is that they are generally so bloated with ugly liemaking much of the weaponry will backfire.

It´s come to this.

susan s. said...

"Obama and the Congressional Democrats (especially in the House) governed for the last year as though the median voter is a Daily Kos fan."

One could say that those mentioned were almost as out of touch with reality as the ABC is about TEC. Were they not reading their email, or were their 'people' doing it for them?

JCF said...

While we all probably get FAUX News as snippets on The Daily Show and Olbermann as things to be mocked and laughed at, something like a majority of Americans are swallowing Fixed Noise as THE Truth.

Those who ran Pravda 50 years ago could only look on this situation with awe and ENVY.

:-(