Jonathan Bernstein, Salon: Press turns on Paul Ryan

[highplainsdem]

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/01/press_turns_on_paul_ryan/singleton/

We don’t expect much of anything unexpected to come out of the conventions, and in particular the big speeches from the nominees almost always go well. And yet in Tampa this week, Paul Ryan gave a speech that may well have real, lasting and very negative consequences for the ticket.

-snip-

It’s too early to know for sure, but I think there’s a very good chance that Ryan’s reputation has taken a serious hit. Not, to be sure, with partisan Republicans. But these two articles, along with other evidence of serious pushback, suggest that the deficit-scolding section of the press is, finally, fed up with him. And the thing is: If they do start looking, there’s plenty more to see. If, for example, Ryan no longer gets the benefit of the doubt from deficit hawks, they might start to be a lot less likely to give him a pass for his Bush-era budget-busting votes, or for the fact that even on his own terms his budget doesn’t get to balance for a long time, or for the phony math on both spending and revenues that allow him to claim any deficit reduction at all.

Moreover, the very nature of the traditional running-mate role means that Ryan will probably wind up at least pushing the edges of the truth again and again – so it will be relatively difficult for the press to forget this episode or to wall it off as an anomaly.

My guess? Ryan’s reputation will not survive the campaign. And that means that the biggest resource he might have brought to the Romney campaign has been destroyed just as the campaign was getting started.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Yes, it seems that a large segment of the "news" establishment has turned

on Willard & Lyin' Ryan. Since the "newsies" do nothing without instruction from their corporate bosses, I think that some of the more rational minds among the Overlords have maybe decided that electing the Grasping Old Palefaces would be bad for bidniss.

[cali]

2. I'd agree with you on that were it not for the fact that

that's at odds with the flow of corporate monies.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Yes, I know--but corporate interests are not monolithic.

Wall Street, for example, is investing in Willard, but they always have been short-sighted buzzards. The despoliation (e.g. gas & oil) industries will go Willard, of course. But I'm wondering if there's not some sort of insurgency going on.

I am operating on a couple of assumptions. The first is that the media are propaganda vehicles for their owners, and the second is that their owners are less interested in any direct profits from the media than they are in using the media to pump profits across the empire by shaping public opinion into corporate-friendly attitudes.

Therefore I ask myself how these disconcertingly honest stories find their way onto the air & cables, if not to advance the interests of some segment of the .01%.

Ever read the old '70's Kirkpatrick Sale book Power Shift? In it he discusses his theory of the Cowboys versus the Yankees--a split in the ruling class in which the old money (imbued with a sense of tradition and some degree of noblesse oblige) was being displaced by the new-money, smash & grab interests of the Sunbelt & west. In Sale's universe, Rockefellers, Kennedys & the like were Yankees, LBJ & Nixon were Cowboys.

I'm wondering if we're not seeing some sort of rift developing here, wherein some of the greedy old bastards are starting to think about what they're leaving to their grandchildren.

[cali]

15. interesting theory

I have never read Power Shift- though I've long meant to. I think the theory behind it makes a certain amount of sense. I wouldn't be shocked if there's a split within the monied community.

[Fumesucker]

5. Grasping Old Palefaces..

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

17. There was a fascinating thread posted here a while back about the split you describe. I wish I could

find it.

[nanabugg]

18. And his lies and innuendos had nothing to do with it. Even the press couldn't spin for him. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

19. But compare their treatment of Ryan to how they dealt with the Swiftboat lies

or all the "invented the Internet" doo-doo they heaped on Gore in 2000.

In both cases, they just kept repeating the lies as new stories.

[OneGrassRoot]

3. And since they are finally doing their jobs, Dems need to be on their toes...

and not succumb to embellishing.

Don't get me wrong: I don't feel there is ANY comparison between the GOP's outright lies that permeate every single thing they say in public now and anything Dems have said.

Still, our convention needs to be so far above reproach that it can't even be twisted by the press in an effort to be "fair and balanced" (ugh...so tired of that phrase, but you know what I mean).

[tibbiit]

16. I so agree with you because

The media will feel they have to jump on the smallest embellishment to keep things equally bad. Since they were forced to call out the Pukes on Lies, they will be double searching for the equivalent.
tib
(and the will be infuriating because there is no equivalence!!!!!! not in a hundred years worth of bs)

[BeyondGeography]

4. Comeuppance

He's young and full of himself. Grates the scribes the wrong way, especially when he acts as if the truth, or anything resembling it, is a mere inconvenience. Plus, he's associated with a loser who can't run interference for him.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Heh-heh-heh..."Running Mate"

The Marathon Man

[ibegurpard]

8. and you know what's interesting?

they don't know how to respond to it. They've been used to being treated with kid gloves by the media for so long that they just don't know what to do (despite their ridiculous claims of the liberal media...which hasn't been that way in MY adult lifetime (20 plus years).
I have no idea why...maybe powerful people are starting to realize that a nation full of people who can't buy anything is bad for business.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. What really fascinates me here is that the lie was so gratuitous--

It served no purpose other than self-aggrandizement. Shit, I couldn't complete a marathon in 10 hours. 4 sounds pretty good to me, but Lyin' Ryan had to go for sub-3.

This is pathological. I won't comment on exactly what pathology because there is too much armchair psychology around here already (and I plead guilty to some of it), but dammit, it's pathological.

[jsr]

10. Ryan is a sicko

The compulsion to lie is evident.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. It's not sub 3 hrs, its over 4 at 4:01:25 nt

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Yes, I know. That's what I'm talking about.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Backing your play. Lyin' Ryan can't just lie, but has to lie big.

[Jackpine Radical]

14. I missed your point. Sorry.