Sunday, January 09, 2011

Another Dispatch from The Great Silk Road of Pseudoleft Punditry

Yes, Matt Bai, because a Daily Kos commenter saying, "She's dead to me" is just like Palin's infamous "Crosshairs" map.

Bai is one of those guys -- there are hundreds of them in this business -- who poses as a wonky, Democrat-leaning "centrist" pundit and then makes a career out of drubbing "unrealistic" liberals and progressives with cartoonish Jane Fonda and Hugo Chavez caricatures. This career path is so well-worn in our business, it's like a Great Silk Road of pseudoleft punditry. First step: graduate Harvard or Columbia, buy some clothes at Urban Outfitters, shore up your socially liberal cred by marching in a gay rights rally or something, then get a job at some place like the American Prospect. Then once you're in, spend a few years writing wonky editorials gently chiding Jane Fonda liberals for failing to grasp the obvious wisdom of the WTC or whatever Bob Rubin/Pete Peterson Foundation deficit-reduction horseshit the Democratic Party chiefs happen to be pimping at the time. Once you've got that down, you just sit tight and wait for the New York Times or theWashington Post to call. It won't be long.
I'd say, "You're dead to me, Matt Bai!" if I wasn't positive that you'd like to this post as Bai-style "proof" that "Both sides do it!"

Smarter and far less lazy pundits, please!

5 comments:

Privatize the Profits! Socialize the Costs! said...

Thanks for the link to that article; it was even better than the paragraph which you quoted, which was first-rate!

DrDick said...

We cannot have public accountability for the right in this country. That would be shrill and not bipartisan.

Anonymous said...

bend with beck journalism....vox

Anonymous said...

Correction: bend it like beckham..vox

pansypoo said...

or becKKK.