The New York Times posted an article last night entitled "Obama Advisers Weigh Ad Assault Against the GOP," which detailed the Democratic Party's plan to propagate the notion that Teabagger ideas have taken over the Republican Party, based on unnamed sources. So, hey, welcome to the show! Your librul media has been sort of doing that for a while! But David Axelrod, the guy who would do such a thing, says this isn't true. And more importantly, Politico says it isn't true, because their unnamed source says so. But whom should we trust? David Axelrod? No, probably one of those unnamed sources.
The Times had to stick this thing in their article after posting it:
Late Sunday night, White House advisers denied that a national ad campaign was being planned. “There's been no discussion of such a thing at the White House” or the Democratic National Committee, said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama's senior adviser.
So now it looks pretty stupid. "Here is some speculation and people without names we got to say this speculation is true. Except the people in charge say on record this speculation is not true. And now here is some more of this speculation."
But Politico also looks stupid for posting an article about this article without getting a source to go on record. Is it safe to assume all the unnamed sources in these stories are named "My Ass"? Yes, yes it is. Or maybe a homeless guy laying near the White House said he would confirm these things if these reporters gave him five bucks.
So the NYT story seems plausible because Democrats have nothing else to run on right now other than the Teabagger thing that has been set up for them. But that's really a silly platform for a party in power to run on. How did we get to that? Because the Democratic Party has run scared from the things it has passed at the first sign that voters may dislike them, rather than standing up for them and trying to shape public opinion back in their favor. When you don't run on how well you have governed, it sort of implies that you haven't. So they are left just this little thing to run on despite years of government control.
But, of course, this story is obviously wrong, because it's implausible that Democrats could unite under a strong, uniform message. The only one Democratic strategist capable of that is the homeless guy laying near the White House. He's not afraid to piss on things or brag to passerby about that cat he turned into a rocket ship. [ NYT / Politico ]
A Democratic President would run ads attacking his opponents before an election? SOCIALISM!
if DC ever needs a refresher course in why the rest of the country just doesn't give a shit (in good times) or is all medieval on their ass (bad times), this story pretty neatly sums it up.