No Pulling Punches: Kraske's a GOP Stenographer

The Kansas City Star's Steve Kraske uses his Sunday column to put yet another nail in the coffin of the myth of the "liberal" media. The piece, headlined "Pulling punches at primary time," reflects nothing so much as it does the mainstream media's pathological willingness to create stories which feed into its favorite trite, tired theme: that Democrats can't win no matter what.

Kraske's offending bit comes at the end of a fatuous column in which he makes the case that primary candidates ought to be slamming one another much harder than they currently are so that voters can distinguish between them with no greater effort than watching television attack ads. Even more ludicrous is a tossed-off curiosity that Kraske appends to his offering, apparently intended merely to push his piece over the 600 word mark rather than add any insight. He writes:

Today’s most important race of the year: The tough August primary battle in Connecticut where U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman is seeking re-election.

The issue: If a conservative Democrat like Lieberman can’t win, it’s a sign the Democrats are home to liberals only. And then Democrats will be the ones doomed in November.

Lieberman, of course, is locked in a surprisingly heated primary battle with political neophyte and former volunteer teacher Ned Lamont. Lamont has gained traction --forcing Lieberman to consider an independent run should he lose the Democratic primary-- largely because of discontent with the Iraqi war, an issue on which Lieberman has stuck tightly with the failed president.

Lamont's success against Lieberman is indicative of an electorate which has finally had enough of Bush and the politicos who have given him chance after chance to draw the nation deeper into despair. It is the prototypical case of elected officials living, and dying, by the sword.

But to hear Kraske tell it, a loss for a Bushevik candidate like Lieberman would be hard evidence of the fact that Democrats are doomed this fall.

Here's how this conservative media scam works. Pundits like Kraske find examples like the Connecticut Senate primary where they can manufacture any outcome into evidence of a trend that is negative for Democrats. Notice, he suggests that a win for the pro-Bush candidate in that race is the only outcome that won't "doom" Democrats in the fall. He doesn't suggest that a Lieberman win in the primary would stand as an embrace of conservatism that will doom Republicans in the fall. On the contrary, Kraske and other conservative media pundits will undoubtedly spin a Lieberman primary win as evidence that voters --even Democrats-- are rejecting liberal and anti-war principles and embracing the Bush position. Heads Bush wins, Tails Democrats lose.

The beauty of this for Kraske and others like him is that it sets the table for them to write the story that they all love to write. Yet another opportunity to expound upon the trope that Dems are out of touch, without a coherent message, and unable to win elections. Many days it seems as though that's the only story they know.

Plenty of folks, probably Kraske himself, will claim that this has nothing to do with conservative bias or unflinching loyalty to the phony "bumbling Democrats" storyline which he so obviously holds. But if not, then why not write it about the nasty Republican primary in Connecticut's neighboring state of Rhode Island? There, incumbent moderate GOP Senator Lincoln Chaffee is facing a stout challenge from hardcore right-winger Steve Laffey. Laffey, funded by anti-tax/anti-government group Club for Growth, has premised his campaign strictly on the idea that Chaffee must go because of his unwillingness to adhere to conservative orthodoxy.

But Kraske, instead of making the case that "if a moderate Republican like Chaffee can’t win, it’s a sign the Republicans are home to conservatives only. And then Republicans will be the ones doomed in November," simply chooses to ignore the Republican contest and focus on dreaming up potential negative consequences to connect with Democratic primaries.

We have to be able trust our media figures to play it straight. We can't. Pundits like Steve Kraske, trying to make their way in a media universe which every day reveals more of its corporate conservative bias, have become too invested in their own trumped up Democratic fratricide fantasies. Rather than wake up, report a little, and find some real trends (a look at the revulsion for the war among a great and growing majority of Americans might be a good place to start) reporters like Kraske are only too happy to trot out for the 30th time a story based on a "trend" which was relevant three years prior.

Little wonder that the business of news gathering and political reporting in the newspaper industry is dying a slow death. Consumers of new media will not sit still and consume stale thinking.