The Sweep: What went wrong for Democrats - CNN.com

The Sweep: What went wrong for Democrats - CNN.com:

Why is it that liberals sometimes get a lot more reflective and almost "journalistic" as they face the prospects of "death" (political or otherwise)?

Generally good column, I think one of the things that Gloria misses is that while the common person is MUCH more intelligent than she imagines, they are also MUCH less interested in politics in general, and all but a couple political issues than she imagines.

"And they never stopped talking. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell gave 107 floor speeches on health care, and 25 speeches on why we shouldn't close the prison camp at Guantanamo. It was the first executive order -- a promise that was not kept, because it became messier than anyone thought. It was supposed to be a hugely popular idea, but within a couple of months, it just flipped: going from an 80 percent approval rating to an 80 percent disapproval rating."

Than ANYONE thought? Well, certainly no messier than rational people that paid any attention thought all along -- but I guess Gloria isn't in that camp. 

So how does such a thing as Gitmo shift like that? Democrats and Gloria assume that such fickle positions must equate to stupidity, while I assert it relates to priorities and attention bandwidth.

Democrats and their friends in the MSM identify something that 95% of Americans don't have any interest in and carpet bomb the front pages, first few minutes of news programs, glossy magazines and even entertainment shows with the "simple message" -- Gitmo bad, Bush stupid, no reason for Gitmo, Gitmo could be closed at any moment without issue. Since people don't care and only one side of the story is being presented, they figure "close Gitmo", why not?

Rhetoric changes to reality as the ruse pays off and a Democrat is elected -- there are very nasty folks at Gitmo, nobody wants them in their back yard, media and Democrats just give up on the issue. They never really cared about Gitmo for anything but a political ploy anyway, why not just drop it?  The people realize that they were snookered -- it happens all the time, this is nothing new. They are marketed to with overblown and false promises more than any set of humans in world history.

They know when they have been "played", and unsurprisingly, they don't like it. They like it even less when the elites that blasted "Gitmo, Gitmo, Gitmo" at the top of their lungs now don't care about it and call the general public "fickle" for "changing their mind". Apparently, folks like Gloria really DO think it is somehow "a mystery" ... or more likely their game is so old and so standard that they forget they are even playing it.

So at the time the president was proposing government solutions to problems, the nation's view of government was bottoming out. Only 20 percent trusted government to do the right thing all or most of the time. Even after Watergate, that number was at 36 percent.

When Dwight Eisenhower was president, trust in government was at 73 percent. Nowadays voters wouldn't trust the government to walk the dog.

How does such a thing happen? For 8 years, we had "the worst president in history" according to the MSM. His "destruction of personal liberty" was UNPRECEDENTED in American history. The world laughed at the US ... at least from the POV of our own MSM. He was running two wars -- one completely wrong and unjust which was "lost already" ... one that was "just" but he was losing because "he had taken his eye off the ball". The world was clear -- replace Bush and the sun was sure to shine. 

We elected the favorite son of the MSM. We win in Iraq using the "surge" he opposed. He sends more troops into Afghanistan, then more again, then he fires his own handpicked general and we are still losing. Dying troops were a major source of hand wringing, protests and charges of "Bush incompetence" before -- now they get barely notice with no analysis whatsoever. 

The economy tanks. Bush is blamed and blamed some more. We are told that if we spend a trillion dollars, unemployment will stay below 8%. It goes to 10%. It holds stubbornly over 9.5%. Bush is blamed some more -- but now the Democrats face a CONGRESSIONAL election and they have held congress for FOUR years. Since they claim no credit for the current economy, but rather blame Bush, can one draw any other conclusion but that they feel that having the opposition party in congress absolves them from responsibility? But wait, how can that be? When the Republicans took over in '94, they were the root of all evil. 

The MSM is convinced that "the problem" is "Tea Partiers and Fox News". Does anyone really have to wonder if the situation was reversed and John McCain was in office, what the MSM would be saying? We don't really need to ... in '92, the economy was far better than it is now, yet the MSM was as hard on the "it's the economy, stupid" as the Clinton campaign was -- which is to say RELENTLESS. 

You bash even the best Republican presidents endlessly (remember Reagan?), then you set the bar for your candidates ... Clinton, BO, impossibly high, and surprise surprise, they fall far short. And the people lose confidence in government. And the MSM wonders.