What Happened To The Democratic Negativity (Part I)?

Yesterday, I was hanging out over at Kevin Drum's place (blog). I had some on-the-fly reactions to one of his posts ("The New New Conventional Wisdom") discussing the media wonderment that Democrats are suddenly such positive creatures.

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It's not the video (of Dean's "nuts" speech) that suddenly has made attacks out. It's that Dean is no longer in front.

Kerry was a big negative player in mailings, but now he's on top. He'll try to ride it out.

Gephardt was totally negative, and he's gone.

Dean knows he can't be negative anymore, and this is more from his showing in Iowa than anything else. The video just amplifies it for him.

Clark wasn't really that negative in the first place, so that doesn't really apply.

Ditto Edwards.

What we have here is the expounding of a "great difference" that really isn't such a great difference. Lieberman doesn't have to trash Dean anymore, and just has to try and posture with the other pro-war resolution Democrats (at least for the time being).

If Dean somehow surges again, get ready for more negativity. This is a joke, and clever commentators ought to pick up on it. But, if you favor a candidate who's helped by Dean getting trashed by Big Media, you probably have an ethical quandary.

The attempted assassination of Howard Dean's image has been epic, but not yet complete, and Dean can bounce back. Many are convinced he will.

The absence of Democrats speaking out against Big Media's portrayal of Dean (not the Internet, or Drudge, but mainstream media television and newspapers), which clearly has interpreted a campaign rally beyond what it really was, and misrepresented the spirit and nature of that post-caucus rally, not to mention has declared the victory of image over reality (since Big Media shouldn't be bothered to point out that the images do gross injustice to what was really going on...they only need to comment and amplify what the images seem to say).

I've taken note that none of the Democratic candidates or the party has spoken out against the blatantly unfair treatment of Dean, who has brought much energy, enthusiasm, attention, and fundraising to the party.

Whoever wins the nomination, if it isn't Dean, will be next.

I don't want to hear them complain when they get ambushed by Big Media, whether it's Kerry and his haircuts or some other nonsense.

Right is right all the time. If it's wrong for the mainstream media to do that, you need to say so all along. Guys like Kerry only complain when it happens to them, and take advantage when it's happening to someone else.

Like I said, whoever wins better not complain about their portrayal in the media. They stood silent while Dean was nearly destroyed, and he's a good man. They are no better, and deserve no better treatment.