It's the Power, Stupid!

When Clinton, the impeached one, was running for president he had a banner up in his campaign office that said "It's the economy, stupid". The point was that to win, his people had to ignore all the other issues, the ones that Clinton was weak on, and just talk about the economy. The reasoning was that all the average voter cared about was the economy.

Today we see that all that matters to the media elites is the power they get by siding with the government; "It's the power, stupid!"

The simple reality is that the Washington Post has more influence on how many politicians vote than their constituents do. That's because day in and day out politicians read the Washington Post to find out what's going on in the world and because those same politicians talk to the reporters from the Post on a regular basis; they're friends. The average politician spends a lot more time in the company of the media in DC than they do gabbing with their constituents. Even during election campaigns, the same reporters are ever present while the voters are a blur of faces that appear and disappear from fundraiser to fundraiser.

Because the media work with the government in order to get their stories, they have an amazing amount of influence. The MSM (Main Stream Media) reporters are essentially the friends of the politicians; and we all know what influence friends can have on people. Additionally, since MSM reporters are almost all liberal they envelop the candidates in a cloud of liberal "reality"; in liberal reality when hundreds of thousands of people march in the dead of winter in DC for the right to life of every unborn American nothing really happens.

In the old days the media worked for the people because the people bought the media's products or read the advertising associated with media reports. Bringing down corrupt government made money because it was interesting to the voters who paid for the media's products.

However, as the power and extent of government has grown the media have changed their customer base. Sure, it's useful to keep people paying for the media's product but that is no longer the key objective; if it were, we'd be seeing more politically balanced if not outright conservative major media outlets, since it's conservative media that make money -- contrast Fox News and MSNBC -- just as G and PG rated movies are generally more profitable than R or X rated movies.

Instead the media lives off the government. If reporters play ball with government, they'll be rewarded with special access and leaks that will make them famous not to mention the sort of inclusion that makes reporters think they're making a difference which is the real coin of the realm in the MSM.

The nature of those leaks however must be such as to not damage the growth of government or those politicians the media likes. If reporters dig dirt on the government, they can get accolades -- if the dirt hurts conservative politicians -- like Bob Woodward, or they can get in trouble -- if the dirt hurts the growth of government or liberal politicians -- like Sharyl Attkisson.

This apparent dichotomy is due to the simple fact that, in general, MSM employees are very liberal politically. They openly cheer liberal candidates, even anti-feminists ones like Bill Clinton. To them, reporting is actually a crusade to propagandize the American public into adopting the liberal agenda. If you're a reporter and your boss is the brother of Obama's national security advisor, it would take guts to try and dig out the truth about what happened in Benghazi.

As a result of the more "friendly" relationship between the MSM and government truth was the first casualty in the transition from the media in the old days to the current MSM.

When a Democrat does something bad, whether it is Bobby Kennedy wiretapping Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and releasing the tapes to the media or Bill Clinton's serial affairs, the new liberal media had no trouble protecting those secrets just as the old media protected military secrets in WWII. But it is not even necessary for a conservative politician to actually do something wrong in order to be pilloried by the MSM. For example Gov. Palin was mocked for having said she could see Russia from her backyard when she never said it; Tina Fey said it while pretending to be Gov. Palin in a Saturday Night Live sketch.

Understanding this symbiotic relationship between the MSM and liberal politicians -- reporters support their favorite politicians and manipulate coverage while the politicians give the MSM special access, leads, and the types of government policies the reporters like -- is important when trying to figure out what the MSM is up to these days.

Neither the Benghazi or IRS scandals are getting much traction in the MSM. What has riled them up is Obama's heavy-handed use of government power to spy on his "buddies" in the MSM.

What the MSM doesn't understand is that Obama has been raised with a sense of entitlement. He actually believes he had to work twice as hard as a white person to get where he is even though he'd never really done anything prior to being elected president. In Obama's mind, the MSM owes him sympathetic coverage because he's black. As a result Obama doesn't think he owes the media anything; including friendly treatment. To Obama the MSM owe him because he is who he is.

While Obama has lived the privileged white lifestyle, he envisions himself as someone who pulled himself up from the depths of a south side Chicago hood. Even if we ignore Obama's real life where his path was made easy at every step by rich connected grandparents and government policies that give blacks special privileges -- no matter how wealthy a setting they came from -- we can see the silliness of that conceit in Obama's identification of Trayvon Martin, who was staying in a gated community not a ghetto hellhole, as a "son."

But even in the face of Obama's actions towards the MSM, the media are treading lightly for two key reasons; liberals like cats and they like how Obama is remaking America into a new Venezuela.

Cats are ungrateful beasts that demand attention but don't return love. Liberals love them. Like girls who empower abusive boyfriends, many liberals lack the gumption to take action when Obama treats them poorly. Hardcore liberals, like Stalin, are a different breed than the liberals who populate the MSM these days and Obama knows that. He knows that liberals can't attack a liberal black man without damaging their own self-esteem; conservative Blacks are another matter because in the eyes of liberals blacks who don't conform to the liberal ideal are not really black.

That's why Rush is right in asserting that the media will not turn on Obama, though they may turn on Holder in order to shield Obama.

Which means that in order for Obama's multiple scandals to get traction, conservatives need to work around the MSM by developing grassroots media channels to get the word out to the low-information voters. Talk to your coworkers, casually mention about how the IRS was targeting groups that Obama didn't like, talk to your friends or write a letter to your newspaper. Every little bit helps.

There will be no Watergatelike drumbeat of constant nonstop coverage of any of Obama's scandals in the MSM. Unlike conservatives who turned on Nixon when they saw he was a criminal, liberals will excuse anything so long as it's their guy who did it; witness the media support for Clinton even after it was clear Clinton had lied under oath to avoid being sued for sexual harassment.

In America today, elections are decided by low-information voters who will tend to vote the MSM line because it sounds more caring to them. Conservatives need to educate those useful idiots so that the low-information voters understand how Obama's policies will hurt them.

You can read more of tom's rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious and feel free to follow him on Twitter

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