Myopia of the Commentariat

by Michael Sean Winters

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How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? I have no answer to the famous tongue twister. But, checking out the cable news shows last nights, I cam up with a question, easier to ask and harder to answer: How myopic can a cable news host be without getting laughed off stage?

Rachel Maddow was interviewing Steve Schmidt, the Republican operative who ran McCain's 2008 campaign. Their exchanges are almost always fun to watch and frequently enlightening precisely because they start from different partisan stances. But, in suggesting that Mitt Romney's campaign would be burdened by the legacy of George Bush's legacy because - as she said - he took on so many Bush foreign policy advisors, 17 of 24, and that this would repel voters. Really? I am betting that very few people outside the Beltway or the precincts of a few news bureaus and a few academic haunts can even name one of Romney's foreign policy advisors. I have a hard time imagining the Obama campaign running ads introducing these former Bushies to the electorate in an effort to sway the electorate. No, this is an example, not of a little learning being a dangerous thing, but of an inside the bubble myopia that is stunning.

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