Split Emerging Between Conservative Media And GOP Leadership On AIG Mess

[babylonsister]

:nopity:

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/economy/split-emerging-between-conservative-media-and-gop-leadership-on-aig-mess/


Split Emerging Between Conservative Media And GOP Leadership On AIG Mess


Here’s an interesting subplot developing amid the AIG mess: The emerging split between leading conservative media figures and GOP leaders over how to respond.

GOP Congressional leaders have roundly condemned AIG and its executives, as part of a strategy to position themselves as heroic defenders of the taxpayers and to paint the Obama administration as weak and ineffectual. Mitch McConnell recently blasted AIG’s bonuses as an “outrage.” John Boehner said that the “American people are rightly outraged.” And Eric Cantor bemoaned the “stunning lack of accountability” on AIG’s part.

But increasingly, leading conservative media figures are moving in a different direction: Defending AIG.

Rush Limbaugh recently said: “I am all for the AIG bonuses” and attacked the Obama administration for trying to undo them. He also blasted Dem efforts to get the names of the AIG bonus recipients as “McCarthyism.”

Fox News followed suit, also comparing Dems to “Joe McCarthy.” And Sean Hannity has now derided efforts to tax the execs by saying: “In other words, we’re going to just steal their money.”

There’s not really a direct contradiction between the GOP leaders’ professed outrage over the bonuses and the conservative media’s condemnation of efforts to recoup them. But the conservative attack on Dems is rooted in free market orthodoxy, which GOP leaders have implicitly ditched in order to get outraged.

This split could muddy the GOP message and even compromise the party’s efforts to use AIG to damage Obama. After all, GOP leaders are now mulling whether they should call for Tim Geithner’s head over the bonuses. If leading conservative media figures keep suggesting to rank and file Republicans that there’s nothing wrong with the bonuses, how will that mesh with the claim by GOP leaders that we should hold Geithner accountable for them?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. Cognitive dissonance is no problem for GOPers, their minds are habituated to it.

[kestrel91316]

2. Limbaugh IS the leadership of the Repuke Party, and only peripherally

a media figure.