Is the political punditocracy always wrong, or

[chieftain]

is it just on things that really matter? The talking heads were all convinced that Bill Clinton would have to resign. They ignored the polls that showed the country was solidly opposed to the GOP coup. They were astounded when he survived and refused to forgive him or the Democratic Party for remaining in office.
Similarly, they had talked themselves into believing and proclaiming that the public option was dead. Now they are scrambling to figure out what has happened and once again they are mystified.
I watched Chris Mathews emphatically display his ignorance, feigned or real, by insisting that the Democrats had to have 60 votes for a public option in order to get it passed. At no point was the procedural vote for cloture discussed.
I really think that on the key issues of the day, the level of knowledge of the average DUer far surpasses that possessed by the talking heads. The inbred tendency to base their opinions on what they hear from the cloistered world of their equally limited colleagues constitutes almost as great a danger to representative government as the concentration of news sources in commercial enterprises. The combination of the 2 is truly appalling.

[Ron Green]

1. The punditocracy have 2 problems:

1) They live within the Beltway and are tainted by that mindset, and
2) They are entertainers first and foremost, even if they forget that fact.

[chieftain]

3. You're right on both counts.

Celebrity is much more important than journalistic professionalism.

[valerief]

2. Tweety is basically RW so he'll support their talking points where it counts. nt

[chieftain]

7. I think he is Republican but not RW.

He also blows in the direction of the prevailing wind. I grew up in an Irish Catholic working class family and find his upper middle class adoption of my upbringing insulting and flawed. Reading his book on Kennedy and Nixon told me his basic loyalties were to the GOP. The fact that an Irish-American Catholic teenager was so saddened that JFK had won and Nixon had lost speaks volumes.
All that said, Chris does hit the correct note some times. After he got over his crush on W, he made some strong statements against the Iraq War. He ridicules the Birthers and other wacko elements of the Republicans. I believe that he tends to be slightly more accurate than the 2 times a day recorded by a stopped watch.

[glitch]

4. Or maybe they are really spundits.

You know, pre-bought to spin just one way pundits.

[uponit7771]

5. Just things that really matter, they're are in bubble themselves & hate original thinking

[hileeopnyn8d]

6. Yes

I believe they are almost always wrong.

I remember a few years ago, all the network news anchors held some panel where they sat around and talked about their failures in the coverage of the run-up to the Iraq War. They talked about what they should have done, lots of hand-wringing over feeling pressured to cover the war in a positive manner, which ultimately lead to them letting themselves off the hook.

Still, while watching it I had a slight glimmer of hope that they would learn from their mistakes, that they would hold accountable the people who lied us into war.

But no, now they let the main liar, the one they were so sure had info no one else in the world had, the one who continues to this day to tell the same lies despite being proven false, to direct the discourse regarding the still ongoing wars. They let him go unchallenged on his "Up with Torture" tour, they let people think he somehow still has more knowledge of ongoing foreign policy than the current administration, despite the fact that HE WAS LYING WHEN THEY TRUSTED HIM BEFORE.

Sorry for the rant!

[chieftain]

8. No reason to apologize.

For what the W regime did to this country a rant is the mildest form of condemnation that they have earned. And yours was spot on.