Stop the Presses?

This past week's coverage of the House Democratic leadership election should, once and for all lay to rest the concept of a Liberal Media bias. As reported in most major news organizations - including the NY Times and Washington Post - instead of an orderly leadership selection process, we witnessed a bizarre menage-a-trois between Nancy Peolosi, Jack Murtha, & Steny Hoyer. The MSM painted Speaker Pelosi as some Beltway Borgia feverishly scheming to have the white smoke plume blow for Enforcer Jack, while the Party establishment did an end run around her in favor of Hoyer. This was largely brought about by Enforcer Jack's somewhat checkered past with lobbyists, fake Saudi Princes (ABSCAM) and other forms of typical DC debaucherie. Of course on careful inspection, what becomes obvious is a very simple chain of events that let everybody save face:

1. Speaker Pelosi shows loyalty to Enforcer Jack by nominating and supporting him
2. Dems do their bit and vote in the right man - Hoyer
3. Murtha loses fairly in a floor vote but can continue to function as Pelosi's enforcer since she publicly supported him

End of story, everyone's happy, but not the press who rely on the cliche of disorganized, fratracidel democrats to either appease their corporate media masters or because they're too lazy to do real reporting. Yet again. Can you spell W-M-D?

That's not to say that the Democrats aren't fratracidel - to wit - James "I married a Nazi" Carville and his very public fight with Howard Dean and the DNC. Why anybody would still pay attention to this idiot (Paul Begala too) is simply beyond me. The bottom line is that Dean's 50 state strategy as Joe Conason rightly points out in Salon, worked. The Dems were effectively able to roll-back the GOP in states that were totally written off by the party establishment - including Mr. Carville & Begala. They are now and always will be the attack dogs for the Clinton Party - not the Democratic Party. And if Hillary is going to get the nod, it won't be because the DNC is going to be loud, active, and motivated to support her. So better to try and take out Dr. Dean - again. Remember folks, the scream wasn't leaked by Republicans but by the Party establishment personified by Jimmy the C and Lil' Paulie. So now that the opposition is in the driver's seat the Dems need to take a page from the GOP - create and manage the story - but STOP becoming the story!

All too often Dems focus on their own, limited and independent agendas while foresaking the message of the party. This has got to stop or the GOP will be back with a vengence in '08. It's up to all of us to make sure this does not happen. Monitor the news - where you see the press being lazy and indulging in their penchant for cliche - write them! Make them work for a change and really report. When you see needless sniping between party spokespeople - call them on it. Write their offices, call them, tell them we won't stand for this nonsense anymore. That they need to keep these things and themselves out of the media and focus instead on advancing the party agenda. Enough is enough! Tell the talking heads to shut the f@#* up and help us accomplish something the next 2 years!