I don't doubt that the Democratic Congress will be blamed
Which is why it's important that they step up and do things properly, and that goes well beyond the stimulus package. Health care, the Employee Free Choice Act, etc, are all critical.
That way the Dems will be blamed for...improving the situation? Good luck with that. The Reps will look as out of touch with the public as they did during the Terri Schiavo incident in 2005 or Monica Lewinsky leading up to their defeat in the 1998 midterms.
Simply a matter of switching strategies: "Campaign competently, and let the Reps blow their brains out" to "Govern competently, and let the Reps blow their brains out."
The public is prone to bouts of stupidity, but it's not stupid in this case (in fact the 28%ers have actually been reduced to the 16%ers), and it will go along with you, so long as it can see that your efforts are making a difference for the better. Ultimately, that's the test.
As for the WSJ -- who cares? The WSJ will eventually go the way of the NYT. Now that Lord Rupert is trashing the news division, the WSJ is being reduced to simply a bunch of nutjobs. Good riddance to it. I assure you: What the editorial really is, is panic fire. You can rewrite important, opinion-making history down the road, when those who lived to see it are either really old or dead. But you can't rewrite the history immediately -- not when the public has formed a clear memory, and when that memory has already hardened. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
I agree about the WSJ and the NYT, medium term. But for now they still shape the narrative. Oddly enough, it is even possible that the sheer variety of sources of opinion and information will actually reinforce their position as a gatekeeper, given their recognition as "serious" places.
We'll see. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
In re: narrative stuff, a key problem I find with the NYT and, to a lesser extent in the liberal blogosphere, the WSJ -- the "Obama's Going to Destroy Social Security!" panic being, in all likelihood, a great example (insert my "We'll see" as always) -- is the way our medium can often inadvertently amplify the stupidity that comes out of the traditional press.
I think the gatekeeper problem is real, but not terribly significant in its impact on Average Joe. And there's an element of "gatekeeper" to the Big Dawgs in the blogosphere. If you're a news director wanting to know what folks on the blogs are talking about, you obviously aren't going to go sorting through Rude Pundit or Balloon Juice or any of the smaller ones. You're going to hit Daily Kos, Red State, etc. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
