Sound Politics: Laying in that Bed You Made

June 29, 2008

Laying in that Bed You Made

The flip side of the PC-infused discourse many on the left have promulgated is that pillars of the MSM Establishment tend to hold everyone accountable for failing to adhere to such standards.

Hence, today's very public scolding of the state Democratic Party from the Seattle Times.

The editorial called the party's Sopranos ad against Dino Rossi "sleazy," their resulting apology "weak," and said:

Democrats need to go to Apology Class. A full apology goes like this: "We are sorry. We goofed." This should not be one of those halfhearted routines that implies the wrong belongs to those who took offense.

Between this dustup and Christine Gregoire's "rock bottom" rhetoric in describing BIAW's ads against her, both sides are going to be walking a tricky line in this campaign. How to hit the other side hard, without spoiling the effectiveness of the effort by attracting hordes of negative press back on oneself.

Posted by Eric Earling at June 29, 2008 09:12 AM | Email This

Comments

1. Say WHAT Seattle times? You think there's a democrat out there with remorse to something said about republicans?
Let's have a race to see you find one of those or I find sasquatch.

Posted by: PC on June 29, 2008 09:33 AM

2. Damn... I never quite thought that anyone could take something so small and blow it up to absurd proportions! Seems like all your candidate's supporters can do is whine...

Posted by: demo kid on June 29, 2008 09:50 AM

3. Nice scolding by the Times. The apology was weak, the video was weak- which, coming from the Democrat Party, I'm really not all that surprised.

Posted by: Rick D. on June 29, 2008 09:58 AM

4. "Well, it's how we do things in Chicago"

Obombaaaaaaa

Posted by: gs on June 29, 2008 10:31 AM

5. This is the same technique that Hillary used against Obama -- make slight slurs, then back off -- but at the same time make it clear that your opponent is somehow "different". As in Rossi is a hypenated American and Gregoire is lilly white.

It plays to the worst senses of people, but sadly, it can work. Obama went from being a mainstream candidate to being a "black" candidate.

It's somewhat heartening to see the Seattle Times make this condemnation -- but at the same time they are promulgating the meme of Rossi as a ()-American.

Posted by: John Bailo on June 29, 2008 11:02 AM

6. Did anyone notice that the Times only considers the Soprano connection to be unacceptible?

The moral luminaries at the Times don't have any problem bashing the BIAW.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on June 29, 2008 11:33 AM

7. Gee, demon baby goat, that didn't stop you leftist scum from flipping out over an email posted on a county GOP website about Oliar, did it?

It's not your positions that are problematic (Those are flatly moronic and defy reality) it's your reeking hypocrisy and double standard that's the issue.

You only want to hold one side accountable for what they say or do. And that's what makes your "opinion" so utterly worthless.

Posted by: Hinton on June 29, 2008 11:59 AM

8. So...

The Seattle Times advocates bald-faced lying?

Posted by: Al on June 29, 2008 12:45 PM

9. Rossi can make hay all year long on Gregoire's record and never leave the freeway.

Unfortunately- that road is the only one Gregoire managed to get paved while Governor.

Posted by: Andy on June 29, 2008 01:00 PM

10. Actually I am surprised that the Seattle Times took Gregoire to task for their racist ad. Unlike what you said the MSM Establishment tend TO NOT hold everyone accountable for failing to adhere to PC standards.

I guess this is an exception to that rule.

Usually they play a double standards. Otherwise the Democrats wouldn't have a KKK member in a leadership position in Congress.

Posted by: Steve on June 29, 2008 01:48 PM

11. @10: Actually I am surprised that the Seattle Times took Gregoire to task for their racist ad.

Wow... funny that there's only racism when someone else does it to your candidate! Otherwise, it's just "good fun" spoiled by "PC attitudes". Until you can make the argument that Italians are a race unto themselves, get off your high horse.

And, of course, if you can argue that the BIAW aren't the equivalent of mobsters in this state, I'd be pretty impressed.

Posted by: demo kid on June 29, 2008 02:23 PM

12. @7: And let's see... slander versus background music in an ad. If you think that they're both on the same level, you're dumber than I though.

For the record, I think that the music in this ad *was* a poor choice, simply because it's about as subtle as a 2-by-4 to the forehead. It does not score points in my book for being clever, and clumsy ads aren't really what political campaigns need when the battle is bound to be close.

Posted by: demo kid on June 29, 2008 02:28 PM

13. #2: Demo kid, you may be too young to realize that your party---THE DEMOCRATS---WROTE THE BOOK ON TAKING OFFENSE AT VERY LITTLE. Everyone here will agree with me. It was all learned at the feet of democrats. Now they have to get it all back at themselves, and they have only themselves to blame.

Posted by: Michele on June 29, 2008 02:41 PM

14. ..AND BTW, I'm shocked that the Times would take democrats to task for anything. This paper and the PI are usually busy covering for anything wrong the democrats do. But lately the Times blasted Gregoire for her very obvious political pay-offs to the groups that bought her 3rd count, which is also surprising. The only thing I can think of to explain these very recent events is that the Times is starting to really get scared about declining circulation rates in their industry, and has finally decided to do something about the long-standing complaints from people like me who've refused to take the paper for a long time now because we got sick of the way the Times/PI have basically been mouthpieces for the state democrat party.

Posted by: Michele on June 29, 2008 02:47 PM

15. @13: I'm sorry... I forgot that racist jokes are funny if they're not about you! How silly of me.

Posted by: demo kid on June 29, 2008 03:23 PM

16. Michele

Remember the ads they lib/dems put out showing Reagan with AIDS during the 80's. As if it was his fault.

The dems wrote the book on smear.

Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on June 30, 2008 10:54 AM

17. Is it too much to ask that our blog master get the spelling right? The word is "lying" and not "laying" as in "Lying in that bed you made."
Sorry for being pedantic but this common grammatical misuse drives me nuts...along with the misuse of personal pronouns that has become endemic even among presumably educated folk.

Posted by: Arnold on June 30, 2008 12:35 PM

18. No Arnold, it's called typing fast and no proof reading.

Yes I know lazy excuse, but that's the way it is.

Thanks.

Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on June 30, 2008 01:45 PM

19. When I read this, I got a different impression entirely. What I saw was "Look, the Seattle Times found a way to take democratic talking point and spin it into a news story so they could repeat it."

I mean come on, this isn't Chicago or New York or even San Francisco, there isn't a large enough and political enough group of italians in the Puget Sound to worry about offending.

Posted by: johnny on June 30, 2008 04:37 PM

20. Well, we all know that the MSM is out to be intellectually dishonest when it comes to covering Obama and to a lesser extent, Gregoire. One incident is not a big deal, but if one looks at them collectively, it becomes a big deal.

I have been looking for a non-partisan website that evaluates the news media's coverage for the Election. DO NOT bother with Factchecker.org; it is a progressive website and obviously slants coverage in favor of Obama. It probably works in cooperation with FighttheSmears.com - Obama's website. Snopes.com does not present in-depth coverage of the election to my knowledge, but they are fairly centrist and reliable.

Posted by: KS on June 30, 2008 07:11 PM

21. Arnold @ 17

Switch to Decaf.

Posted by: Rick D. on July 1, 2008 09:09 AM