Markos Moulitsas
The Hill
Twittering the ongoing negotiations over the stimulus bill last Saturday, Democratic Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill bragged, “Proud we cut over 100 billion out of recov bill. Many Ds don’t like it, but needed to be done. The silly stuff Rs keep talking about is OUT.”
Yes, silly stuff. Stuff like money for new school construction and law enforcement, money to help states avoid massive layoffs and service cuts. Apparently, “centrism” means opposition to saving jobs and improving educational opportunities in our country, while Republicanism means obstructing. And their rewards? The “centrists” are “courageous,” while Republicans get feted for their “glimmers of rebirth” on The Washington Post front page.
Meanwhile, the cable networks schedule Republican lawmakers 2-to-1 over their Democratic counterparts — a real challenge when you consider that there aren’t very many Republican lawmakers left in Congress. Take note that many of those Democrats are actually opponents of the stimulus, and it’s soon clear that pro-stimulus voices have been curiously rare in national media.
Yet through it all, an increasingly sophisticated American public is getting better at bypassing the media noise and making up their own minds. Just as they eventually decided to ignore the media proclamations that “George W. Bush is a great leader,” or that “Hillary Clinton is inevitable,” they’re now tuning out much of the Beltway-driven anti-stimulus media onslaught. As Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod told the press on Monday, “Here’s the point, folks: We’ve got a good plan to deal with a deep crisis. The American people support it and we’re urging everyone in Congress to catch up with the people on this one.”...(Click for remainder).
http://aliberals-hitlist.blogspot.com/2009/02/republicans-ignored.html