It's the narrative, stupid.

[lostnfound]

A word resurrected from lit class decades ago, thank you very much Peggy Noonan; it sums up what the corporate media is selling.
The narrative about John McSame, the narrative of a brave war hero who never gives up on serving his country. The narrative about Governor Wonderwitch, the narrative of a feminine yet tough hockey mom in the Alaskan wilderness who takes on government as usual and storms the metropolis of Juneau, gun in hand and infant on her back. It's Audie Murphy meets Sacajawea. Or something like that.

And they try to change the narrative of our candidate. I caught a program about Obama the other night on CNN, and heard a lot of talk about how years ago, he "found a godfather" and became "part of the Chicago political machinery", with ominous music in the background, etc. etc. In little ways and big ways, the echo chamber of talking heads will rewrite the narratives, right down to the crawl on the screen quoting Obama describing Palin as "Mother, governor, moose shooter -- that's cool."

When our candidate got on TV long enough during the convention, he told a great narrative -- his own -- so when he gets airtime he does a lot with it. But the very next day, the Republicans were busy rewriting the story, changing the tune -- and it took a couple of days for the snakes on TV to swallow the rat, but now that they've digested the new narrative, they are running with it.

They can spin these over the next 8 weeks and give McSame a 10% bump, easily -- the people who are looking for a narrative to be able to make up their minds about their vote. With a narrative, you can turn the dirt into nobility and the noble into dirt, in the time it takes to weave a story -- across several networks, for many hours per day. If the job applicant with "Harvard magna cum laude" on his resume gets beaten by the fish picking moose hunting beauty queen, well, that's a good story too -- or more accurately, it will be spun into one.

If Obama can buy enough airtime, he might get the images out that need to be seen, such as McCain eating cake with Bush when NOLA was drowning, long enough for the amnesiacs to remember. But the television is constantly whispering -- in some cases, shouting -- the other guy's "narrative" throughout the "corporate-pre-paid" airtime, "the regular programming".

[applegrove]

1. Agreed the narratives are important. I wish we would hear more about

Obama's time as a constitutional law professor etc. He's a self made man.