Welcome to the kleptocracy. $160 million in bonuses here, $220 million in unpaid taxes there - we should just see it as an unimportant "distraction" and focus on the really important issues like the supposed outrage of $200,000 earmarks, right?
It's already been established that the fuss over earmarks is simply the press latching onto McCain's talking points and running for the goal line with them. Put another way: earmarks aren't a problem. The media tells us we're supposed to be outraged by them, just like they tell us we're supposed to be outraged by this. Did you ever wonder how, on Monday of this week, the headlines and talking heads all blared "Nationwide Outrage Over AIG"? How would anyone in the media know who was outraged and who wasn't? They just made it up and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now David Sirota tells us that we're supposed to get to business on the "real problem" of the $170M in AIG bonuses because... otherwise, the press would just have us talking about $200,000 earmarks? I thought OpenLeft's whole mission was based around the idea that the press is mindless and not worth listening to. But now we need to fabricate outrage in order to beat the media at their own game... or something?
Here's where the blogosphere has failed: they've helped push along a story that is, substantively, nothing more than mindless red meat demagoguery. In theory, blogs are supposed to counteract the appeals to emotion of the MSM with actual analysis and innovative ideas. On this one, they've fallen into the same old trap.
