Coverage v. Narrative

Paul Krugman wrote this election is a test of the system; Matt Taibbi commented that it should never have been this close; Bob Cesca has wondered why the corporate-owned media has stuck with its narrative of a close race, come hell or Hurricane Sandy's high waters; Steve Benen at The Rachel Maddow Blog has been chronicling "Mitt's Mendacity" throughout the campaign.  Our blog roll alone contains an endless stream of words and deeds by the R ticket that should DISQUALIFY Romney from being President.  And yet here we are, a week out, and you can follow the polls, the pundits, the MSM, anyone you want.  What a country!  Democracy in action!  Except, it's not.

From a purely HIGHpocritical viewpoint, it's easy to spot the most basic of problems: Romney's debate #1 'win' fueled a narrative that Romney was not going to end up the inevitable loser.  Everything he said and did up to that point was a gambit anyway.  But, Obama's and Biden's debate wins [more convincing IMO because they were actually debating real people, not ghosts, who showed up intent on winning too] restored the forecasting numbers, but the narrative went unchanged.  Why? 

McCain-Palin. Romney-Ryan. Not 1 of the 4 belongs anywhere near the White House. Whatever criticisms could be lobbed at the current President, we'll never get that discussion on a national level, because of the cynicism & lying on the part of the major opposition party in our political system, and because of the false equivalence on the part of the MSM.  BTW, that begs the question of when the media is ever going to take a serious look at the Koch-addled influence being peddled?  About the same time as they ask for Romney to release his tax returns, meaning, never.  Tax returns alone = he's hiding something, why is that OK?  How come he gets a pass there?

What about race or religion?  [Hint: Missourah relatives know Romney is a tool, but they will vote for him anyway, since Obama is black. OK, that's more than a hint.]  Why was Romney's Mormonism never an issue, race is OK, but religion is off-limits?  That's HIGHpocrisy.  I stopped reading Sullivan's blog after his hair-on-fire posts but he did write a great one on this topic.  
 

What about character, then?  Romney has lied all year, demonstrably. He doesn't care about fact-checkers.  Pollsters have a liberal bias.  Stats are cooked if they favor Obama.  Chris Matthews tried to tell Steve Schmidt that Romney should apologize to America for being such a complete cynic.  We've said already that Romney has either been lying to the base all along, made more obvious when he switched on 'Moderate Mitt'; while Ryan winks and tells everyone he's conservative enough for the both of 'em. Or, Romney's lying presently to the moderates. Or both. And at the same time. 

 

How does that help this once-great nation as a whole, when we're still trying to recover from 2 unfunded wars and tax cuts for the rich?  We don't know, we don't have answers.  We have theories, above, and wishes, that maybe these last 2 acts of a desperate, shameless shyster will finally put him back in his rightful place?!  All we can say before this election that ends a campaign unlike any other in history, is what Sgt. Phil Esterhaus used to say on Hill Street Blues: 

Hey, let's be careful out there.