This morning we have a living, breathing embodiment of America’s political culture and its ruling class: a prototypical featured article in Politico by Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei which “reports” on the widespread anger at President Obama from — as they put it — “virtually every group that matters in American politics.” Who, to Politico, are the only groups that matter in American politics? “Congressional Democrats. . . Democratic state party leaders . . . . Democratic lobbyists . . . business leaders . . . Republicans.” And of what does this “reporting” consist? A bunch of petulant, cowardly royal court functionaries — hiding as always behind “journalistic” anonymity — whining in Politico about a series of petty ceremonial slights. That’s what makes this article such a perfect exhibit of our self-absorbed political culture, and this article will undoubtedly shape much cable news chatter for today at least.
With a massive unemployment crisis, millions of foreclosures, rampant elite lawlessness and plundering, and pervasive, severe anxiety over America’s decline, this is what the “groups that matter in American politics” are anonymously complaining about:
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