The MSM: "Obsolescence is no longer a specter down the road, it is the current reality."

Dissecting the media’s reaction to Romney’s birth certificate joke and Clint Eastwood’s performance at the Republican convention, you may start feeling a little sorry for the MSM pundits who are now so obviously out of step with the public.

Once they were the cool crowd, now they have become the clueless nerd with the “kick me” note pinned to their shirts.   

You may want to start feeling sorry, but considering the damage they have done and the hatred they have for the average American, I won’t join you. 

Senator Blutarsky

On the Friday before the RNC came the kerfuffle over Mitt Romney's quip about his birth certificate at a campaign stop in Michigan. Said Romney, "I love being home, in this place where Ann and I were raised. Where both of us were born . . . No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."

The reaction was as swift as it was predictable.

Professional race-baiters, presumably looking to get in some warm-up reps ahead of the RNC, leapt in to action.

Michael Eric Dyson is a professor of sociology, which is a totally legitimate field and not mere academic window dressing for left wing activism in any way, so shut up.

Applying the intellectual rigor that is the basis for sociology's great esteem within academia, Dyson charged Romney with "some of the basest, most despicable bigotry we can imagine....

 

Dan Balz of The Washington Post opined that "It's baffling... for Mitt Romney, on the Friday before his convention, to make any kind of reference to (birtherism) is shocking, really. I don't know what possessed him."

John Dickerson of Slate said "I was on the phone with an advisor from the Romney campaign earlier today and they were saying 'the only the Obama campaign does is throw up obstacles in front of us because they can't talk about the economy. Well, here Governor Romney was making an obstacle for himself."


And so it went, with all and sundry in the MSM seeming to embrace one or both strands - it was probably racist and even if it wasn't Romney foolishly took the focus away from his economic message.  ...

And anyone laboring under the misapprehension that this instance was an outlier need look no further than the reactions to Clint Eastwood's speech six days later at the RNC.

Ann Althouse highlighted the reaction of a pair of MSNBC bloviators, which seemed to be echoed throughout the MSM, including much of its' small right-of-center fringe:

“Clint Eastwood was a disaster,” Lawrence O’Donnell said.

“I thought Clint Eastwood was bizarre,” Ed Schultz said. “It was demeaning to the presidency.”

And then offered her own take on Eastwood and the media reactions thereto:

"It was great! Hilarious... subtle... well-paced.... The haters are totally bullshitting and playing dumb (assuming they are not actually dumb). And what they are trying to do is scare other celebrities: Toe the line or we will destroy you. That crushing repression is the opposite of what the performing arts should be about."

A Survey USA poll shows 49% of respondents with a positive impression of Clint Eastwood's speech versus 24% with a negative impression. The figures for independents are 51% and 25%, respectively. Barring the emergence of some wildly different data, I think we can take this as confirmation of the Instapundit/Althouse thesis.

So, let's see: MSM bloviators 0, the people and the Internet 2.