Those of you who question the value of newspaper journalism should check out the New York Times’s torrential coverage of Tuesday’s midterm congressional primaries, which appear to portend a vast wave of anti-incumbent sentiment. The emerging narrative is one of Tea Party-style rage gone mainstream, at least in Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Kentucky—where GOP-chosen and Mitch [...]
Say you’re a certain political party that, for reasons totally beyond your control, suffered an electoral defeat in 2008 so humiliating that it seemed to dictate a wholesale reevaluation of your priorities. Everyone predicted that you would founder for decades, but then—miraculously—your politics experienced a sudden resurgence. According to the national news media, at least, [...]
It’s been a bonanza week for news commentators, with earthquakes, tell-all books, people saying “negro” two years ago—everything that makes a vibrant political discourse thrive. The big news, though, was that a certain someone jumped from national electoral politics to the big show: cable news commentating. When Bill O’Reilly welcomed Sarah Palin to Fox News, [...]
By now you have probably heard that Sarah Palin has joined Fox News as a contributor, and will be providing “her political commentary and analysis across all Fox News platforms,” which by 2012 will presumably include blimps and children’s mouths. This is the kind of news event that makes so much sense, once it has [...]
He’s been wrong before, but when David Brooks says you’re a nationwide movement, you’re either Soccer Moms in the 2004 general election or a real thing. In Monday’s New York Times, Brooks alleges that the Tea Party movement is the latter. After opening with his usual overview of the prevailing sociopolitical winds for the last [...]