Salon news editor attacks media's false narrative on tax cut compromise and replaces it with one of his own

Standard vanilla beltway hack

Salon’s news editor, Steve Kornacki, has published a truly remarkable exercise in establishment liberal-centrist sophistry concerning Barack Obama’s tax cut compromise. To this point, the preferred media narrative about this is that by agreeing in principle to a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts, Obama has alienated his “liberal base.” The problem with that assessment, as I pointed out the other day, is that it completely ignores the fact that according to a CBS poll, a majority of Americans wanted the cuts to be extended only for those making less than $250,000 a year, and that 67% do not want the cuts extended for those making more than that. Since that post, Bloomberg—obviously a news organization that caters to wealthier readers—confirmed these results with a poll of its own which “shows that only a third of Americans support keeping the lower rates for the highest earners.”

Ignoring this data, Kornacki wrote a bizarrely titled apologia for the Obama administration, “Obama’s Silent Majority,” in which he attacks the media’s portrayal of the deal as a sellout of his liberal base. According to Kornacki, it turns out that not only did Obama not sell out the base, Obama didn’t really sell out anybody! Apparently, the only ones who are feeling left out in the cold after this compromise are “[l]iberal commentators and activists and interest group leaders.”

How does he know this? Because, “their rage has not trickled down to the Democratic voters (and, in particular, the Democratic voters who identify themselves as liberals), even though they’ve been venting their grief for the better part of two years.”

Kornacki then goes out to note how Obama’s approval rating among Democrats has remained static throughout 2010 before concluding:

Obama, in other words, seems to have developed his own silent majority. Rank-and-file liberal Democrats may not agree with everything he has done, but they do not share the sense of abandonment and betrayal that has defined liberal commentary throughout so much of his presidency. The party’s liberal base still very much likes him; it’s the elites who have turned on him.

The only poll numbers Kornacki cites are the president’s approval ratings among Democrats. He says nothing of the polls which demonstrate that a two-thirds majority of Americans—not just Democrats—do not want the tax cuts to be extended for those making over $250,000 a year. Given this fact, where exactly is Kornacki finding this silent majority? Or do two-thirds of Americans comprise those elites he was talking about?

Citing polls showing how Democrats have continued to support Obama even after he’s wussed out on a myriad of occasions—including closing Gitmo, caving on the public option, and extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, among other capitulations and failed promises—does not impress me in the least. Democrats overwhelmingly favor closing Gitmo, favored the public option, and want the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire. On these latter two issues, Democratic opinion is in step with a majority of Americans in general. That Obama’s approval rating has remained steady among liberals suggests that either liberals aren’t paying enough attention to see the gap that exists between their ideas and the president’s policies, or, what is a more likely explanation, that liberals see no viable alternative. As such, they are often disappointed by Obama, but in the context of the American left/right paradigm, he looks good by comparison. At a time when the right is led by the likes of wackdoos Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, it’s easy for Obama to seem like the last, best hope for American liberalism. He is after all, the president. But looking like a liberal compared to say, Mitch McConnell, is a hardly a noteworthy achievement. So Kornacki can point to Obama’s approval ratings among his “base,” but it doesn’t change the fact that more often than not, on major issues Obama has gone against them. Apparently, for Kornacki this is not relevant. What’s relevant is that Democrats endure one disappointment after another, only to keep coming back to Obama like an emotionally scarred woman who always goes back to her abusive husband because she’s convinced that he’s the only one who could possibly love her.

- Max Canning

max.canning@gmail.com