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whoops, forgot about my self-imposed bandwidth limit for the front page of the blog, so...
I really like Matt Stoller's writing at MyDD:
So anyway, if you need evidence that journalists in DC adopt the biases of their sources and eagerly sop up conventional wisdom, you need go no further than [New York Times temporary columnist Thomas] Edsall. Look at who he doesn't like in this article--pro-choice groups, unions, and minority rights groups. These groups, if you are a Democratic insider, are annoying. They make you do work. They force you to not cut deals with the other side, and they hold Democrats accountable for bad economic choices. They make people like Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel uncomfortable because they demand good policy choices, and by and large aren't (or shouldn't) be willing to trade away core principles to the right for better parking spots.
Edsall of course didn't talk to a janitor who just got a raise in Houston, he didn't talk to a Goodyear worker losing his job, or a displaced New Orleans resident, or a NJ retiree with good pension and benefits because of his union. Edsall talked to his friends, and his friends know, they just know, how important better parking spots are. To these people, knocking labor unions just feels so right, doesn't it? I guess it's a testament to how firmly the intellectual core of journalism has rotted that journalists now work strongly against their own economic interest. Even as Edsall attacks unions as an out of touch "pressure group on the left" that "no longer command broad popular allegiance," his former colleagues are relying on their union to improve journalism and stop the job cuts devastating newsrooms across the country.
[...]I suppose in Edsall's world, corporate media barons are part of the coalition of "dominant," and unions are not. So even though the Republican Party was soundly repudiated at the polls in favor of a strongly populist Democratic Party backed by labor, and a touchstone abortion ban was popularly rejected in one of the reddest states in the country, Democrats have no choice but to reject unions and pro-choice groups, or they will face judgment at the polls.
This digital pog design, by Jeff Sisson, is one of my favorites, so I enlarged it.