[/caption]I have a hypothesis about political hacks and talking heads (mostly the big dogs, small town bloggers like myself don't count): Liberal pundits are more likely to attack the actions and plans of Democrats than wingnuts are with regards to Republicans.
Or maybe more to the point, when a liberal attacks a liberal, apparently, it's news.
I have no evidence. Just one, single observation.
On March 23, 2009, Paul Krugman slammed the Geithner plan to buy up toxic assets off the banks books. (And I don't even have an opinion about the plan, so that's not relevant.)
A Google News search at Midnight showed Krugman's name was mention in about 4,000 articles in the last hour. And a vast majority of them, gauging from a precursory skimming of a few pages, are about how he's blasting Obama's toxic asset plan.
Why is this newsworthy?
Question One: Is he the only damn economist available? Reporters, haven't you ever heard of HARO?
Answer One: No. But didn't you hear about all the staff cut backs. It's easier just to rehash the wire story, or worse, Drudge.
Question Two: When in the world does the media ever give a crap about Paul Krugman.
Answer Two: They don't. He gases everyday about something within the confines of his blog The Conscience of a Liberal on NYTimes.com and it hardly ever makes a blip.
Sure the media covered the story about Paul winning the Nobel Prize, but it's all about placement. I guarantee his Nobel Prize win didn't lead the newscast.
So where is the so-called liberal media when Tim Giethner could use it?
It's a farce. It's a red herring. It's literally a phrase Republicans made up in the '70s to have a scapegoat for why their dirty, secretive president couldn't get any love.
And even though I believe a slim majority of the media probably are more liberal in slant, I think news coverage is slanted to the conservative. It has to be so they can say their actions are beyond reproach.
And this ties into the overall theory here: Liberals are much more likely to be critical of liberals than is true for conservatives judging the actions of conservatives.
