I mentioned Al Gore the other day in the Washington Post, which is basically like turning the Daily Howler signal on for World’s Greatest Liberal Bob Somerby:
Serwer suggested we may have a “media problem” in the coverage of Pawlenty. That’s always possible, of course, although we think Serwer’s analysis is pretty silly. Pawlenty’s debate performance was notably weird. Journalists should have noticed.
[…]
Sad, isn’t it? To see this topic enter the discourse because a career liberal like Serwer is shedding tears about the alleged mistreatment of poor Pawlenty! After he and his kind have spent twelve years deep-sixing the “media problem” unloosed against Candidate Gore! Pitiful children like Serwer and Chait are currently telling the truth very slowly. Just a guess: Most people reading yesterday’s Post didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about.
[…]
Did Post readers have any idea what Adam Serwer was talking about? We can’t imagine why they would have. But that is life inside a world in which career liberals have sold their souls, and shut their traps. for the chance to be media players. A world in which your big career liberals are telling the truth very slowly.
One: I didn’t argue that reporters shouldn’t have noticed that Pawlenty refused to deploy his dumb “Obamneycare” attack in the debate. I argued that it was silly to start questioning his manhood as a result, or to suggest that schoolyard taunts were indicative of executive ability.
Two: Somerby really likes attacking “career liberals” for their “tribal loathing” of conservatives, which he sees as an attempt to dumb down the masses in the name of professional advancement. Unless a liberal is knocking down some kind of idiotic gendered criticism of a Republican because “man enough” shouldn’t be a qualification for the presidency, in which case said “career liberal” is guilty of insufficient tribal loathing in the name of professional advancement.
Three: The story of Al Gore and the media pathology that warped coverage of an election more than a decade ago must be told five times a day every day, while facing Miami-Dade County. Anything less means you’re a “career liberal” who has sold their soul for a chance to someday sit next to George Will on This Week.
