Irrelephant

of all the writers on Washington doings I have read over the past four years or so, one of those I would most recommend to a Republican is former Clinton advisor (and author of Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America ) Robert Reich.

He has, in my view, an ability to make tempered and intellectually honest arguments. (As opposed to, oh, say, Limbaugh.) And, as he once demonstrated on the Conan show with Laura Prepon (lucky Robert), he's a crazy-good dancer.

But anyway, I say all this as preamble, or lead-in, to this post from Reich's blog: Obama, Bitterness, Meet the Press, and the Old Politics.

Excerpts:

Political consultants are paid huge sums to help politicians spin words and avoid real talk. They’re part of the problem. And what do Russert and these four consultants talk about? The potential damage to Barack Obama from saying that lots of people in Pennsylvania are bitter that the economy has left them behind; about HRC’s spin on Obama’s words (he’s an “elitist,” she said); and John McCain’s similarly puerile attack.

Bitter? You ain’t seen nothing yet. And as much as people like Russert, Carville, Matalin, Schrum, and Murphy want to divert our attention from what’s really happening; as much as HRC and McCain seek to make political hay out of choices of words that can be spun cynically by the mindless spinners of the old politics; as much as demagogues on the right and left continue to try to channel the cumulative frustrations of Americans into a politics of resentment – all these attempts will, I hope, prove futile. Eighty percent of Americans know the nation is on the wrong track. The old politics, and the old media that feeds it, are irrelevant now.