We’ll give this much-coveted prize to a piece by Mike Allen and James Hohmann over at Politico though to be fair, I’ve heard it all over and they’re just channeling Beltway “wisdom.” Which is one of those words like “reform,” that so often means the exact opposite of what, in fact, it means.
Allen and Hohmann tell the touching tale of befuddled pols and journos who can’t figure out why Obama is seen as a winner in DC for having bullied through healthcare reform, but a loser in the rest of the country, where his popularity continues to decline. Whyever could this be? Ooh, ooh, I know, must be because “Republicans won the health-care messaging war.” Sure, guys, that’s it.
How about we transpose that narrative, see how it works? “Observers in England are puzzled. They see George III as a winner after he successfully imposed a tax on the colonists’ tea. Oddly, his popularity with the colonists continues to fall. Looks like those patriots have won the tea tax messaging war.”
Or alternatively, we could apply Occam’s Razor and use the simplest explanation: Obama “succeeded” in passing a bad bill the public doesn’t want and which impinges on their American liberties. Which isn’t really success at all, is it?
From now on, journalists should have to arrive at work a hundred at a time, all stuffed inside a Volkswagen. Because they’re clowns.
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