Narrative Obsessed Pundit’s Reality Problem

When Richard Cohen looks into the mirrory cover of Time Magazine’s Person of the Year issue, he truly believes he’s won. Atrios linked to this Daily Howler catch today. In it, The Howler points out the naked denial of reality in Cohen’s article on McCain. That is, Cohen describes reality before completely ignoring it.

Describes: “Earlier this year a close friend of John McCain gave me fair warning: McCain was about to become much more conservative, and I would not like what was coming. He was right. I did not like McCain’s speech at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, and I think his support of intelligent design is—sorry, John—just plain brainless. But it is not the supposedly new McCain that bothers me, it’s the old one: His incessant sword-rattling has gotten just plain rattling.”

Denies: “Anyone who knows McCain appreciates that his call for more troops in Iraq is not, at bottom, part of any political strategy. McCain is a thoroughly admirable man. Like any other politician, he will punt when he has to, but he is fundamentally honest, with sound political values.”

Same article.

Atrios puts it well, “This is the true High Broderism – not just a belief in the ultimate rightness of the club of bipartisan technocrats, pundits, and other elites, but a belief in their actual power.”

Cohen deliberately denies reality and, in doing so, comes to believe that he’s actually changed it. It’s the problem with the well-fed corporate media and the reason for the success of the reality-based community.